While at Pepcom-San Francisco Kington’s representative introduced us to Kingston’s second-generation MobileLite Wireless Mobile G2 battery charger and storage device. We were hoping for a significant improvement over the first generation. We were not very enthusiastic about last year’s first generation MobileLite Wireless unit. It was strictly a wireless card reader with internet pass thru capability, plus a portable battery for charging your mobile devices. The case design and functionality left a lot of room for improvement. We have Verizon’s expensive LTE data service which is great stateside. Other BSN* editors have wireless coverage from carriers that work best at their stateside offices. However, our editors travel outside the USA and several of them live in other countries. So stateside wireless data package coverage suddenly disappears or becomes outlandishly expensive.

Specifications

This is where the Kingston MobileLite Wireless Mobile G2 steps up to store that data until you can get somewhere convenient to transfer it. It also extends your storage, streams your media, charges your devices, reads from USBs and SD cards, and allows you to connect to the web with it acting as a portable router. For those of you shooting multi-megabyte RAW photos with a Canon or Nikon DSLR camera, simply put your SDHC card into the MobileLite Wireless Mobile G2. It will easily store those images until you get back to a place with a secure high-speed WiFi or wired network. Then you switch over to your second SDHC card and continue shooting the event. If you have a partner with you, they can take the MobileLite G2 with your SDHC card in it to the nearest secure WiFi and send the images and data files to your home or office webserver via FTP.

With its built-in 3.8v Li-ion battery at 4640 mAh, it can last for up to 13 hours of continuous use. That will keep your mobile devices alive, until you get back to your car or a location with 110V shore power.

Packaging

Kingston’s package explains the features on the front and inside flap of the box.

Just three items are in the box: a 1.5 foot USB 2.0 cable, a microSD to SD card adapter, and the MobileLite Wireless Mobile G2 device. You will have to download the Kingston MobileLite Wireless app from the appropriate app store – Google Play, Apple App Store, or Amazon Apps. We tested the MobileLite Wireless Mobile G2 application with the HTC One M8 (Android 4.4.4).

There is no documentation with the unit. You have to go to Kingston’s website for the manual. Your data storage is with an SD card, either the micro-SD format using an adapter or a standard SD card. For this review, we are using the Kingston 32GB SDHC Class 10 card with 30MB/S transfer capability.

The Kingston MobileLite Wireless Mobile G2 includes 3G USB dongle support for direct connections and is compatible with Android 4.0+, iPad (2, 3rd Gen, 4th Gen, mini, Air), iPhone 4/4S/5, iPod Touch (iOS 7+), Kindle Fire, and Kindle Fire HD. When connected via USB to a PC, it can act as a USB 2.0 card reader for the system. For a desktop PC, it is compatible with many operating systems including Windows Vista (SP2), Windows 7 (SP1), Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Mac OSX V. 10.6.X+, and Linux v. 2.6.x+. The MobileLite Wireless G2 has an 802.11 g/n WiFi access point that supports WPA2 data encryption. WiFi is one of the ways to access the MobileLite G2 when using a smartphone or tablet, thus having a fast and secure 802.xx connection is important.

User Experience

The white bezel has six buttons, LEDs, and ports. Below from left to right, first is the battery LED/ power which indicate remaining battery time. Pressing the larger white Power button (fourth from left) makes the LED change colors. Green indicates 51 percent to 100 percent battery charge is remaining. Orange indicates 25 percent to 50 percent remaining, and red indicates less than 25 percent battery charge is remaining. Next is WiFi LED which indicates current status of WiFi broadcast. The next LED to the right is for Bridged that lets you know if the MobileLite G2 is bridged to an Internet gateway via WiFi or with the Ethernet cable port.

The larger Power button turns the MobileLite G2 on or off with a short one second press. Holding the power button down for three seconds will put it into WiFi mode. Next to the right is the Reset button. Holding it down for more than 10 seconds will reset the MobileLite G2 to its original default configuration. The Micro-B USB port is a multi-function port. It is the way you charge the MobileLite G2. Or you can connect to a standard USB port on your computer for data transfer. The microUSB port is to charge the device’s internal 4640 mAh battery. The battery charge status indicator LED makes sure you charge the MobileLite G2 before you walk out your home/office door.

On the opposite side of the white bezel is the Ethernet port. Using a standard Cat 5e/6 cable you can connect the MobileLite G2 to your wired network. This allows you to create a hotspot for wireless Internet access. On the end of the white bezel is the SD card slot and a USB 2.0 port. The USB port works with the USB Standard Type A plug, the most common USB male end connector.

Kingston’s MobileLite Wireless Mobile G2 app on our HTC One M8 was minimalistic. There is no GUI, it is just like an old-fashioned bare bones file directory app. This is the place where we went back to the 13 page owner’s manual. It was not very informative. The manual could use some better examples. We suggest Kingston partner with a software developer to build a full-featured GUI application. That would take care of the only short coming we found. Using our 14Mbps WiFi connection at 100 feet distance we were able to quickly load multiple music files and large video files from the Cobra ultraHD dash cam (which will be our next review). The app helps you make folders for keeping track of music, videos, and data. The app does include a basic photo viewer as well as a music player.

Conclusion

The Kingston MobileLite Wireless Mobile G2 is a light weight device which has an amazing number of features. All the Mobile G2’s features worked, however, you should allow yourself a bit of time to learn how to use them all. Pricing of the Kingston MobileLite Wireless Mobile G2 at Amazon is only about five dollars more than the eyeFi Mobi 8GB WiFi card. Plus the MobileLite G2 has battery charging with up-to 13 hours of functionality and you can use any microSD or SD card for storage. BSN* rates it as a must-have for everyone, especially those readers who have one of the older smartphones or tablets without a micro-SD expansion card slot. Special thanks to Kingston for providing the MobileLite Wireless Mobile G2 charger and storage device, and the Kingston 32GB SDHC Class 10 card and to David Leong, and Shealyn Johnson for their assistance.

The post Kingston MobileLite Wireless Mobile G2: Review appeared first on VR World.

Classrooms at schools of all types are filling up across the nation this week, as students once again return for another year of classes.

As students prepare for another year of learning, retailers  slashing prices on the tools and toys that students will need to get through another school year.

To help guide your back to school purchases, VR World and Bright Side of News contributors have put together a back to school guide for 2014 to help you buy the top tablets, smartphones, dorm room TVs, premium notebooks, low cost notebooks, and gaming systems for your 2014 back to school shopping.

Top Five Back to School 2014 Smartphones

1) LG G3

With a quad-HD screen boasting a resolution of 2560 x 1440, the LG G3 is one of the best smartphones available for purchase today. The design of the LG G3 speaks volumes about the shift LG has witnessed in the way it handles product design. Although the G3 does not feature a metallic back, the brushed metal finish and the curved edges exude a sense of class that Samsung has thus far failed to achieve with its Galaxy S line of devices. Although the G3 features a 5.5-inch screen, the narrow bezels and the curved back design means that it is comfortable to hold and use one-handed.

A more interesting change from other mainstream handsets is the placement of the volume and power buttons, which are at the back of the G3. LG started this trend with the G2 last year, stating that the placement of buttons at the back of a device was “intuitive” and was more comfortable for users in the long run. As is often the case with such decisions, the placement of the buttons is subject to individual taste. There are many who like it and make the switch, and then there are users who cannot get accustomed to the change. What is clear is that it makes the device easier to use one-handed, as you don’t have to reach all the way to the side to switch on the device. It is likely that most users will not even bother using the power button to switch on the device thanks to LG’s Knock Code, which allows you to unlock the device by tapping on the display. The latest version of Knock Code allows you to set your own unlock combinations for switching on the screen.

Under the hood, the LG G3 features a Snapdragon 801 SoC, which has an Adreno 330 GPU and a quad-core arrangement of Krait 400 cores clocked at 2.5 GHz. In terms of memory, LG is offering two variants of the device, one with 3 GB RAM and 32 GB internal storage and the other with 2 GB RAM and 16 GB internal storage. The 13 MP camera sensor at the back features a laser focusing system that allows the G3 to focus faster than other devices in this segment, and comes with the ability to record 4K videos. In terms of connectivity, the G3 boasts LTE Category 4 (150 Mbit downstream, 50 Mbit upstream), Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, NFC, IR blaster and microUSB 2.0. The 3000 mAh battery is the only area of concern in an otherwise great smartphone. If you’re looking for the absolute best in terms of hardware, this is the device to get.

2) HTC One M8

Design is one of the key areas of interest with the One M8. HTC has won numerous awards with the aluminum design of the One M7 last year, and with this year’s flagship, the vendor focused more on tweaking the design than overhauling it. The result is that the One M8 features a curvier design, is taller but not much wider thanks to narrower bezels, and features an aluminium back that has 90% metal. The device is taller as it has to accommodate a larger 5.0-inch LCD3 full-HD display, which is backed by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3.

HTC has not sacrificed anything when it comes to internal hardware, and as a result the One M8 holds its own against other flagships of 2014, like the Galaxy S5 and the LG G3. Under the hood, the device features a Snapdragon 801 (MSM8974AB) SoC, which has a slightly lower clocked 2.3 GHz CPU instead of the 2.5 GHz variant found on the G3. The difference is barely noticeable, and is essentially negated considering the One M8 has a full-HD screen whereas the G3 comes with a quad-HD screen. The One M8 also has 2 GB RAM, 16 GB internal memory, microSD card slot to extend memory to 128 GB, Wi-Fi ac, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, LTE Category 4 connectivity, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, USB OTG and microUSB 2.0.

The One M7 saw a paradigm shift in the way HTC tackled imaging sensors, with the Taiwanese vendor choosing to go with a larger sensor instead of one with a higher megapixel count. This time around, HTC has doubled the number of camera sensors in what is called Duo Camera layout. The second camera is used to add a layer of depth, which allows you to change focus to photos and videos. While Google and other vendors have started offering a software-based version of this feature, HTC has decided to go with the hardware route. At the front, the One M8 comes with a traditional 5 MP shooter.

HTC has continued its focus on design even in the software realm, with Sense 6 boasting numerous enhancements and feature additions. The user interface is more modern, and is a far sight better than what other vendors like Samsung and LG offer. Running on a base of Android 4.4.2 KitKat, manufacturer-level additions by HTC like BlinkFeed and Zoe are actually useful without feeling gimmicky. Also, the One M8 features on-screen navigation buttons, becoming the first HTC device to do so.

With the recent launch of the device for Windows Phone, you can now choose between the Android variant and the Windows Phone version. Not since the Palm Treo has this choice been available to consumers. Both versions of the device feature the same hardware as well as most exclusive HTC utilities (Zoe isn’t available for Windows phone yet), and if we were to pick one, we’d go for the Windows Phone version, just because the design of the handset ties in well with the tile-based interface of Windows Phone.

3) Motorola Moto X

If running the latest hardware isn’t as vital as ergonomics, the Moto X is the ideal device for you. Easily the smallest device in this list, the Moto X comes with a 720p 4.7-inch screen that makes the handset very comfortable to use one-handed day in, day out. The internal hardware in the Moto X is more similar to that of the Nexus 4, and may seem outdated by today’s standards, but the device functions with nary a stutter thanks to the way it is set up by Motorola. Instead of throwing in the fastest hardware available, Motorola decided to optimize the hardware so that it just works.

Therefore, while Motorola could have added a full-HD display to the Moto X, it chose not to, as that would mean considerable battery drain and undue strain on the GPU. For a device with a screen size matching that of the Moto X, the decision has paid off as the AMOLED screen is one of the best things about the handset.

Specs include a modified Snapdragon S4 Pro (MSM8960) that offers a dual-core 1.7 GHz CPU, Adreno 320 GPU and two additional cores – one for contextual computing and the other for natural language processing. These cores allow you to access Moto X exclusive features like Active Display, Quick Capture and Touchless Control, which allow you to issue voice commands even when the screen is off. The voice command feature and the ability to customize the device to your heart’s content via Moto Maker differentiate the Moto X from every other device available in the market today.

If a spec list is what you want, that’s what you shall receive: 2 GB RAM, 16/32/64 GB internal memory, 10 MP camera, 2 MP shooter at the front, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, LTE Category 3 connectivity, Bluetooth 4.0 and a 2200 mAh battery. Although the battery size may not inspire much confidence, the Moto X easily lasts a full day on a single charge. Still interested in the LG G3? Fine, but we suggest buying an external power bank just in case (that quad-HD screen needs a lot of juice).

As for the Moto X, a successor dubbed the Moto X+1 is scheduled to be unveiled next week, but that doesn’t meant that the original device is any less alluring. If anything, it’ll drive the price of the Moto X down, which is a good thing.

4) OnePlusOne

OnePlus created a lot of hype with the OnePlus One, and while most of the time the final device fails to live up to its expectations, the OnePlus One delivers on all fronts. Featuring a 5.5-inch full-HD display, Snapdragon 801 SoC (MSM974AC), 3 GB RAM, 16/64 GB internal storage variations, LTE Category 4 connectivity, Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 4.0, 13 MP camera with a Sony Exmor IMX214 imaging sensor and a 5 MP front shooter along with a 3100 mAh battery, the OnePlus One is blazing fast.

The design of the device is understated, like the Nexus 5. There aren’t any manufacturer additions that are often found in high-end handsets, like the laser guided camera focusing system on the G3, or the fingerprint scanner on the Galaxy S5. The OnePlus One is designed to be a minimalistic device, and as such does not offer any extraneous utilities that usually tend to make things harder at the manufacturing level (ahem, Duo Camera on the One M8).

On the software side of things, OnePlus has collaborated with Cyanogen in launching a custom version of CyanogenMod for the OnePlus One, called CyanogenMod 11S. Based on Android 4.4.2, the custom ROM comes with many additional features that are not included in the stock version of Android, like a theme chooser, secure messaging and slow motion video recording.

The $299 price tag for the 16 GB version is just the icing on the cake. Since OnePlus is selling the OnePlus One at near manufacturing cost, one avenue where the manufacturer is looking to make money is through accessories like back covers. Called StyleSwap covers, these back covers serve to customize the OnePlus One even further. A bamboo variant is scheduled to launch later this month, which will be priced at $49. While everything about the OnePlus One is stellar, whether it is in terms of overall design or the internal hardware, there is one drawback that is a huge cause for concern for potential customers: availability.

Instead of launching the OnePlus One on its store, OnePlus created an invite system, which makes getting hold of the device challenging. Since its launch, it has become easier to get a hold of a OnePlus One, but the additional effort required in getting one is unnecessarily cumbersome. It is worthwhile though? Yes. While other value for money devices like the Nexus 5 suffer from a bad camera and substandard battery life, the OnePlus One has no such shortcomings. It is a high-end smartphone that is being offered at a mid-tier price.

5) Lumia 930

In a world filled with Android handsets, the Lumia 930 aims to offer users something different. Launched earlier this year in the year as the Icon, Nokia has launched and international version of the device with a handful of enhancements and addition of global LTE bands.

The design of the Lumia 930 is not as flamboyant as other Lumia designs, although the device does come in various color variations. The sides, like the Lumia 925, are backed by aluminium, with the back featuring a polycarbonate construction. With a 5-inch full-HD display, the Lumia 930 boasts the highest pixel density of any Lumia device at 441 ppi. The contrast as well as viewing angles are great, and the inclusion of Nokia’s ClearBlack technology means that the screen is readable in bright conditions.

The Lumia 930 features a 2.2 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 SoC that excels at powering the device, seeing as how Windows Phone devices aren’t as harsh on system resources as their Android counterparts. Other specs include 2 GB RAM, 20 MP PureView camera with OIS, dual-LED flash and a 1/2.5-inch sensor size, 1.2 MP front shooter, Wi-Fi ac, LTE Category 4, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, microUSB 2.0 and a 2420 mAh battery.

The Lumia 930 is the first handset to come with Windows Phone 8.1 out of the box, which features a significant array of new features like Action Center, Cortana, customizable tiles in addition to Nokia’s exclusive suite of utilities that include Nokia Camera, Creative Studio, Storyteller and more.

Android has Google Now, iOS has Siri, and with Windows Phone 8.1, there is now Cortana. Lauded as the most natural sounding voice assistant, Cortana uses Bing’s search results to offer recommendations, weather results, nearby location information and a wealth of other data, with Microsoft steadily adding more features to the service. One of the main factors against recommending a Lumia was the lack of content available for the ecosystem, but that isn’t the case anymore.

The post Back to School 2014 Buying Guide: Smartphones appeared first on VR World.

Hello everyone, we managed to pick the winners of our BSN* and Qualcomm Snapdragon contest giveaway where we picked, at random, two winners to give an HTC One M8 smartphone. Many of you left us very thoughtful and heartfelt responses and we read them all. Some of you should seriously consider careers in writing if you don’t already have them. Either way, we’re glad to have gotten a lot of feedback from you all about the giveaway and the review and we’ll continue to push forward with more of these kinds of giveaways in the future. We also wanted to thank Qualcomm for being so generous in participating in this giveaway and helping us give back to you, our readers. And without further ado the winners: The winners for our two HTC One M8 smartphones (unlocked AT&T/T-Mobile and Verizon) are:

Odelia Shohet and Ravi Kumar G.

Congratulations to Odelia and Ravi on winning your new HTC One M8 smartphones. In order to claim your prizes, you must contact us at giveaways at brightsideofnews dot com with some form of personal verification. It would be preferred that you email us using the emails that you registered with (a form of personal identification). You have 48 hours from the posting time of this announcement to claim your prize or we will re-draw for another. Thank you very much.

Now, as you guys very well know, we’ve been running contests almost non-stop since we celebrated our 5th anniversary back in March, and we fully intend to continue to do so as we still have many more giveaways left to do from other hardware partners of ours, and as we always say, stay tuned. We regret the fact that this contest was restricted to the US only, but we had to follow the guidelines of the contest’s sponsor and their legal restrictions. We will do our best to make our next contests global, but we still appreciate all of you reading BSN*.

The post BSN* and Snapdragon Contest Winners Announced! appeared first on VR World.

As a continuation of our 5th anniversary celebrations this year and our partnerships with various companies in our industry, we are introducing a giveaway to our readers that tops all of our others. We are giving away two HTC One M8 smartphones thanks to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon, which this phone currently uses as its applications processor in the Snapdragon 801. If you’d like to learn more about the Snapdragon 801’s performance or the HTC One M8 that we’ve reviewed we recommend you check out our review.

The HTC One M8

In order to participate in this review, you must be a legal resident of the United States and Washington D.C. and complete one simple task. That task is to leave a comment on our review of the HTC One M8 telling us why you like the HTC One M8 so much and what phone you currently have. Since this promotion is limited to the United States only, we are providing two HTC One M8s to our readers, with the first person getting priority of which HTC One M8 they will chose. We have done this because unfortunately not all people are on the same carriers and not all versions of the HTC One M8 will work on the same network. As such, we are trying to cover as many people as possible and will be giving away one HTC One M8 for Verizon and an unlocked one which will work on AT&T and T-Mobile.

The contest will begin at 12:00 pm PST on July 9th and run until July 23rd at 11:59 pm. Contest winners will be posted within 24 hours and they must claim their prize within 48 hours of the winner being posted. We wish all of you the best of luck in our contest and hopefully you will be enjoying a new HTC One M8 fairly shortly.

The post HTC One M8 BSN* Snapdragon Giveaway appeared first on VR World.

HTC today announced their earnings for the second fiscal quarter of 2014, Q2 2014. They posted a quarterly profit of NT$2.26 billion ($76.5 million), or NT$2.74 ($0.09 USD) per share on $65.06 billion NT ($2.18 billion USD). HTC’s shares were up as high as 4% on Taipei’s exchange trading this morning (Taipei time). Many people were interested to see how well HTC would perform because of their new HTC One M8 which we’ve reviewed. Based upon their current performance, it seems clear that HTC’s moves clearly resulted in improved profitability and a change in the company’s tide of losses from the previous quarters. Granted, they didn’t actually hemorrhage money in any quarter, they did post some of the biggest losses in the company’s history which led to many people questioning whether or not HTC could survive. Now that this question has been answered HTC can continue to move forward with their strategy without worrying as much about what investors will think about their decisions.

The HTC One M8

There are a lot of rumors that HTC will be picked to make the next Nexus device, likely the Nexus 9 tablet which should allow HTC to increase their revenue and hopefully profitability as well. If they are able to successfully manufacturer a successor to the HTC One Max and upgrade the display, camera and processor, they can probably compete with Samsung, LG and Apple this fall. Right now there aren’t that many smartphone players in the industry that are profitable, but HTC can once again consider themselves among the profitable ones.

It will be interesting to see whether or not the company will actually manufacture a tablet since they haven’t actually done so since they made the Flyer, their attractive but failed Android tablet nearly 3 years ago. Considering that the specs of that tablet are nowhere near the rumored specs of the Nexus 9 tablet that HTC is rumored to be building for Google, it would be a vast improvement for the company’s image and would hopefully encourage them to make more tablets and innovative devices like the HTC One.

The post HTC Posts a Profit With The Help of The HTC One M8 appeared first on VR World.

So, everyone’s been eagerly awaiting Amazon’s Fire Phone for many months, that includes the rumors that they were shopping around for hardware partners as well as possibly launching with AT&T, which we now know as true. There were countless rumors stating that Amazon would build a 3D-capable phone, likely leaked by none other than Amazon. Even though we repeatedly stated that it would likely not be a 3D display but rather a 3D-like effect that you can find with HTC’s One M8 3D parallax effect using the phone’s accelerometer and gyroscope to help the GPU render based on the person’s perspective.

Amazon Fire Phone Maps

The phone is jam packed with lots of software features that some might consider bloatware or fluff. First we have the aforementioned 3D-effects, then you have the web browser scrolling using the tilt of the phone. With the use of their Firefly feature, Amazon will get an ever more detailed picture of what their consumers are doing on a daily basis and can create a media consumption picture of that person. Additionally, the Fire Phone effectively functions as a very high-end Amazon shopping device with all of the features that it enables through Firefly and other apps. Sure, it has Amazon’s Mayday feature that is supposed to help you with your problems within 30 seconds of pressing the Mayday button, however if you ask anyone that’s had problems with their phones before there’s a very low likelihood that a Mayday button will be reachable if there are any serious issues with the phone. You also have to remember that you are stuck with Amazon’s marketplace, meaning that they are going to be making a pretty significant amount of money off of each and every one of your app purchases, and yes, Google does this as well but Google is not the manufacturer of your phone in most cases but rather the facilitator of the OS and core apps. Amazon is clearly trying to create a full ecosystem with this phone and they want you to pay for it too, unlike they’ve done with their Kindle Fire tablets which have been top-notch (or close to it) hardware for very little money. Just remember that buying this phone means that you don’t have full access to the Google Play store unless you side load it (if they let you).

So, what are we talking about here in terms of phone specs? Nothing really crazy, a 4.7″ display at a measly 1280 x 720 resolution, much like the previous generation HTC One (M7). It also sports a 2.2 GHz Snapdragon SoC with an Adreno 330 GPU, most likely making it a Snapdragon 801 SoC. This would already render this smartphone somewhat outdated because Samsung is preparing to launch their Galaxy S5 Prime (LTE-A) relatively soon with a Snapdragon 805 and we will likely see more Snapdragon 805 devices later this month, according to our sources. It will also have 2GB of RAM, which is already considered on the mid-range for most devices as many Android devices are starting to ship with 3GB and 4GB of RAM on the high-end 0r in tablets. All of this will be powered by a 2400 mAh battery, making it a fairly decent battery life expectation when compared to most other phones, unless that 590 nit brightness on the display will actually negatively impact battery life, which it logically should. It will have a fairly decent 13 MP camera which sports an f/2.0 5-element lens as well as optical image stabilization (OIS) and feature a camera hardware button that is designed to allow the user to go direct to the camera in order to save time in capturing photos. As a backup to the camera, Amazon is also offering unlimited photo backup storage for the Fire Phone so that you don’t have to worry about ever losing your images. The phone sports a dual speaker stereo sound setup as well as Dolby Digital support and unique anti-tangle magnetic headphones to eliminate tangled cables. The standard Fire Phone ships with 32GB of storage so you don’t have to worry about running out of space, even though there is no mention of any microSD external storage support. There is also a 64GB version of the Fire Phone available for an additional $100 on top of the standard price of the phone.

That leads us into the biggest problem about this phone. Amazon’s go-to-market strategy and price. Amazon is pricing this phone at $199 with a 2-year contract on AT&T and will not be making this phone available on any other carriers. Additionally, if you wish not to sign a 2-year contract for this phone, you can always pay the $649 up front (32GB version). The problem with this strategy from Amazon is that they are quite literally building a phone that doesn’t appear to be any more unique than their competitors’ devices but at the same time mines the hell out of their customers’ data like its going out of style. Sure, Google already does quite a bit of this on their own with the Android OS, but Amazon is essentially making you pay $649 for an Amazon shopping device with all of the ‘features’ it has. And yes, for a limited time you will get a year of Amazon Prime for free with the Fire Phone.

Sure, Amazon has released a fairly decent phone in most respects, there’s no denying that. But the choice that Amazon made to go with AT&T and to price it like they have clearly indicates that they believe their brand is strong enough that they can survive on a single carrier and selling their device at the same price as the iPhone 5S, HTC One M8, LG G3 or the Samsung Galaxy S5. Frankly, I know a lot of people that have Kindle Fire tablets and I’m not too sure many of them want a FireOS phone to complement it, nor do they (or I) believe that Amazon’s current offering is strong enough to be priced equally among Apple, Samsung, HTC and LG. Amazon’s ego is clearly bigger than they realize and by having gone to market like they have, they’ve almost certainly doomed themselves to failure. That is, unless AT&T has a significant amount of skin in this game and stands to profit significantly more from any Amazon Fire Phone over all other devices that the sell. Be that through revenue share of device sales or through digital transaction sharing, either way, if a device isn’t available on all carriers the likelihood it will be successful is VERY narrow, with the iPhone being the only exception. And the Amazon Fire Phone is no iPhone.

The phone will be available starting July 25th, an oddly distant way away for a phone launch, seeing as we’re more than a month from that date today.

The post Amazon's Fire Phone, Lots of Fluff? appeared first on VR World.

HTC One M8 Review – Verizon Branded Edition

I wanted to start out this review by saying that I went into it expecting HTC to repeat kind of what they did with the HTC One M7. In many aspects, they certainly did and in others they fell into the very same trap that most of their competitors have. Obviously, everyone’s expectations shape how they initially perceive and ultimately judge a device. We saw that with countless smartphones before (Galaxy S5) and will likely see the same again (iPhone 6). Our own expectations sometimes get the best of us and the rumormill certainly feeds those expectations all the way up until the device becomes official.

Now, the HTC One M8 first and foremost has decidedly one of the worst names for a smartphone ever. However, HTC managed to bury themselves so deeply inside of a marketing hole before the HTC One M8 ever landed that they effectively forced themselves to call it the HTC One M8. Why? Because they launched the HTC One X before they launched the HTC One S and both of those came before the HTC One. I don’t particularly like Apple’s naming scheme, but damnit it makes good sense and the simplicity of it keeps consumers focused and understanding what they’re being sold. That way, when they go into a store to ask for a certain device they (and even more importantly, the sales people) are not confused. Obviously, the HTC One X should have been called the HTC One, followed by the HTC One S which should have been called the One A (it had an aluminum body). Once they had established the One brand of phones (as a sub brand of HTC) they could call the HTC One the HTC One S and then the HTC One M8 the HTC One X. Those naming schemes albeit more complicated than Apples, make sense.

Now that I’ve gotten over the poor name of the phone, let’s move on to the device itself and the hardware it sports. The HTC One M8 like its predecessor, the M7 has a full aluminum body with a curved back which allows for a more natural feel on the hand of the user. It also has two front-facing speakers (no longer branded Beats) which are now branded as ‘Boom Sound’ and subjectively speaking they sound even better than the HTC One M7’s. HTC has also backed that up by saying they’re louder but the truth is that they’re just better than what was already quite awesome.

HTC also made a perfect decision once again with the HTC One M8 by deciding to go with a very high quality front-facing 5MP camera with a very wide viewing angle. This allows for really good ‘selfies’ and the camera software in the HTC One M8 actually has a ‘selfie’ mode. Sure, this may make some people cringe, but the truth is that the selfie is a cultural phenomenon and they recognize this. Now, the real question is whether this selfie generation will realize that this is hands down the best phone for a selfie currently in existence.

HTC also opted to once again go for a 1080P screen, but this time they opted for a 5” screen instead of the 4.7” screen on the HTC One M7. This obviously results in a ‘lower’ pixel density than the M7, but to almost anyone the qualitative difference is unrecognizable. It is also important to recognize that the resolution of the display is still lower than anything either of the cameras are capable of creating meaning that images will still look just as great on it. Below, we’ve got images of the HTC One M8 and M7 side by side, its clearly a bit longer.

Now that I’ve talked a ton about everything on the smartphone except for the most interesting part, the primary camera and depth sensor, let’s get to it. HTC decided that they wanted to innovate in their photography (as they have been doing for ever) with the addition of a depth sensor. The reason why this is theoretically a fantastic idea is because it allows you to capture the depth data of an image at the same time as you capture the image. This allows you to ‘focus’ anywhere you want on the image after you’ve taken the image or to make the entire image be in focus. Considering how many blurry photos people still take, this is a pretty good idea, except for the fact that HTC decided to do away with their OIS in the same breath that they added the depth sensor. This means that in low light you are much more likely to get a blurry image or if you hands are a bit shaky you could also introduce blurriness through ‘camera shake’. LG and Nokia have resolved this by building some really impressive OIS systems to allow for longer exposures and way smoother video. Because HTC did away with OIS in the M8 (the M7 had it) any sort of movement in a video results in a much shakier video when compared to a Lumia 1020 or LG G2.

The depth camera can also be used for a multitude of things, like depth mapping a room (see project Tango) and plenty of things that we haven’t even thought of yet. That’s why HTC said that they were opening up the depth sensor to developers to use in their applications, but the truth is that there aren’t any apps out yet that utilize this feature (sure, it’s only been a little less than 2 months). Having a depth sensor should theoretically significantly improve Augmented Reality functionality and could make the HTC One M8 one of the most interesting cameras ever made. When the camera first came out, there was talk of a Lytro-like capability (U-Focus) but the truth is that U-Focus still needs a lot of work in order to be anywhere as good as Lytro. Nevertheless, it is still a cool feature and the 3D-effect is still an incredibly amusing one to show friends and usually gets people pretty excited about the phone.

The HTC One M8 side by side with the Nexus 5

Now, in terms of taking photos, HTC has decided to stick with the Ultrapixel sensor which many people have criticized them for considering how many people disliked the previous one. I have extensively used both the HTC One M7 and the HTC One M8 and I can tell you that even though they are very similar on paper they are very different in practice. First and foremost, the new sensor (and accompanying software) has significantly less low-light noise, almost to the degree where it isn’t visible. On the HTC One M7 HTC actually had to issue a firmware update to fix the noise on the camera because it would get stuck in an ISO boosting loop that would result in grainy images. In fact, it would even do this occasionally during the day in very well lit conditions resulting in some unnecessarily noisy photos.

The HTC One M7 was especially bad at grays and low-light in terms of noise, even after the fix. The HTC One M8, for the most part has ironed these problems out with the occasional noisy photo here or there. In addition to that, the HTC One M8’s camera feels even faster than the M7’s, which was already the speed demon of smartphone cameras. The HTC One M8 also seems focus a bit more quickly and accurately than the M7 did, which is likely due to the fact that it has a depth sensor to assist in accurately finding the right focal distance. All of this results in some fantastic light speed photography that can only be matched if a competitor’s camera is used in burst mode. The HTC One M8 simply catches moments that pass other cameras by, even in today’s super-high-end camera smartphone world. Sure, the Lumia 1020’s camera is probably the best that the world has ever seen, but it doesn’t change the fact that it is slow. If you care about getting ‘that photo’ the HTC One M8 is ‘that phone’.

Side by side comparison of HTC One M7 (left) and M8 (right) compared side by side with no flash.

The HTC One M7 (Below) and HTC One M8 (above) compared side by side with no flash.

In terms of video, like we had mentioned earlier, it definitely seemed to have some issues with stabilization when walking and recording a video, but if the video taker has steady hands the videos themselves look great. We’ve included a few video samples so you can see how the HTC One M8 handles various types of movement and action.

In the below video, you can see how it handles being at a baseball game, the microphones are incredibly good at capturing audio and high speed video, however there is a bit of shakiness from being hand held.

Additionally, you can watch what it is like to get video from the HTC One M8 when walking up stairs, lets just say its better not to take videos while walking up stairs, unlike with the Lumia 1020.

Now, in terms of camera software, HTC has done some interesting things by creating simple modes to switch between different camera features. Those features are normally something that you would have to poke around inside of a menu in most smartphones, but HTC decided to make them 6 different camera modes. Those modes are:Camera, Selfie, Video, Zoe, Pan 360, Dual Capture  . To me, the most redundant mode is the ‘Selfie’ one because you can actually get into that mode from the default camera mode by simply swiping sideways and activating the front-facing camera, which I believe is a great feature.

Now that we’ve covered most of the components and some of the software, I wanted to cover the software improvements outside of the camera that HTC has made. For those that know, HTC uses their own software overlay on top of Android to ‘customize’ the experience. This is known as Sense or Sense UI, and HTC is currently in their 6^th iteration of Sense with the HTC One M8 and has already started to release it to the HTC One M7 as they had promised they would. And because they brilliantly decided to ‘unbundle’ it from the OS itself, they allow for Sense to be regularly updated through the Play Store, which means they don’t have to wait on the carriers to deploy updates like they did in the past.

In terms of Sense 6 itself, it doesn’t feel wildly different from Sense 5.5 (make sure that’s what the M7 ran). However, the problems that the M7 had with the Blinkfeed part of Sense appear to have been fixed now that it supports vastly more social feeds and custom user feeds. I didn’t really find myself using Blinkfeed or making it my default page in Sense, but I did find myself using it much more than I had on the M7. Blinkfeed feels a lot like what Microsoft has done with their Metro UI but without the same level of customization or functionality.

There is one last thing about the HTC M8 that we wanted to talk about was the performance. The HTC One M8 was one of the first phones that came out with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801, which was officially announced at MWC 2014 in Barcelona, which we covered. Now, in terms of architecture and performance, the Snapdragon 801 is like a faster Snapdragon 800 with an improved imaging pipeline, hence the 801 name. There is also a Snapdragon 805 which we recently benchmarked in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 805 MDP (Mobile Development Platform) which is essentially their reference platform for developers and OEMs.

In our benchmarking we found that HTC was blatantly cheating in the benchmarks by boosting the phone’s clock speeds even further whenever a benchmarking application was detected. We talked about this when it was originally discovered shortly after the phone’s launch, but we now have actual numbers to share with you and how the Snapdragon 801 performs against the Snapdragon 800 and Snapdragon 805. And frankly, our results are quite disgusting and when I originally saw the results I thought that it was basically pointless to even benchmark this phone. If you look at the below benchmarks, you will see that the HTC One M8 with the Snapdragon 801 is magically as fast or faster than a Snapdragon 805 which is not only clocked higher but also has a significantly more powerful GPU, which would make such 3DMark, Vellamo and Geekbench scores seem as ridiculous as they are.

So, HTC, you should be ashamed for what you’ve done and I believe that you guys should remove this performance ‘feature’ and own up to the real performance of the phone. Yes, Samsung did it, but they owned up to it and now they are playing nice again, and so should you.

Once again, the HTC One M8 is the best phone that HTC has ever made, and sure it has some faults but the phone for the most part is nearly flawless out of the box. That’s something that the HTC One M7 simply couldn’t say, and hopefully that reflects in the HTC One M8’s sales. Unfortunately for HTC, however, Samsung is a marketing mega monster and will just throw money at the problem and LG just announced the LG G3 which has an insane 2560 x 1440 display and what could arguably be a better camera.

But, in the end, the HTC One M8 is still a much better looking phone than the Samsung Galaxy S5 and the LG G3, and it feels like a quality device in your hands. If there’s a phone that can get people to convert from iPhones over to Android phones it’s going to be the HTC One M8. The real question is whether or not HTC knows that and how they’re going to utilize all of the One M8’s strengths to make up for their naming blunder. We’ve already seen that HTC is marketing the M8 better than they did the M7, but since the launch it doesn’t seem like they’ve done much. All of their major competitors have shown their hands and now it’s time for HTC to capitalize on that, otherwise their future is going to seriously be in question (how many times can we say that?).

Also, I would have happily given HTC an award for the HTC One M8 considering how great quality it is, and how it manages to yet again to elevate the bar for an Android phone. However, because they decided to cheat on their benchmarks, they’ve disqualified themselves from winning any awards with this phone, sadly.

The post HTC One M8 Review: Nearly Perfect, Again. appeared first on VR World.

Verizon’s new XLTE service is merely a new branding scheme for the company to promote their new 2×20 MHz AWS band of data service. As of right now, most users are on Verizon’s 700 MHz frequency which is slowly getting overcrowded, so naturally Verizon would want to deploy a second frequency (which they have available). They are doing this by utilizing their 1700 MHz frequency AWS block  (similar to what T-Mobile has) in a 2×20 MHz implementation which ultimately results in speeds at or exceeding 80 Mbps. Right now, on Verizon’s 2×10 MHz block in their 700 MHz spectrum block most users are getting around half that, at 40 Mbps or less. Some users are getting more, but not much more.

So, Verizon’s XLTE as of yesterday has launched in a few dozen cities on a handful of devices and you don’t have to do anything other than live in the right city and have the right phone in order to get these faster AWS speeds. We would name the exact cities, but there are literally too many to name in order to not just give you a list of like 50 or 60 cities. The link above will let you know if your city is on Verizon’s XLTE list or not. However, even if you’re in an XLTE area, you will still need to have an XLTE enabled device and those aren’t necessarily that common since they have to be newer devices with the right modems inside. A full list of devices can be found on Verizon’s website.

In terms of smartphones, you have the following phones:

iPhone 5S, LG G2, Nokia Lumia Icon, Samsung Galaxy S5, Droid Mini by Motorola, HTC One M8, Apple iPhone 5C, DROID Maxx by Motorola, Moto X, LG Lucid 3, Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Samsung ATIV SE, HTC One Max, Samsung Galaxy S4, Blackberry Z30 and the Blackberry Q10

if you have a Verizon LTE tablet you need to have the following tablets to have XLTE service:

LG G Pad 8.3 LTE, Apple iPad Air, Apple iPad Mini, Samsung Galaxy tab 2, Samsung Galaxy Note Pro, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

And if you have a Verizon hotspot or USB modem you need to have  the following devices:
Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MiFi 5510L, Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MHS291L and the Verizon 4G LTE USB Modem UML295

While we haven’t had a chance to test these speeds quite yet, we’ll be sure to report back to you relatively soon with our Verizon HTC One M8 (which is capable of XLTE) and since we’re usually between San Diego and San Francisco, both markets are capable of supporting Verizon’s new XLTE service. Do keep in mind, however, that this is not LTE-Advanced, which is the next version of LTE service that is already running in places like Korea where they are able to get speeds in excess of 100 Mbps over commercially available devices. LTE-Advanced brings a whole host of features to smartphones, many of which are already inside of those phones, but the networks are simply not ready for quite yet. We know that Verizon is already working on their LTE-Advanced network and that this is likely a step forward in that direction in order to help them prepare for the jump.

The post Verizon Launches New 2×20 MHz AWS XLTE Service appeared first on VR World.

Verizon’s new XLTE service is merely a new branding scheme for the company to promote their new 2×20 MHz AWS band of data service. As of right now, most users are on Verizon’s 700 MHz frequency which is slowly getting overcrowded, so naturally Verizon would want to deploy a second frequency (which they have available). They are doing this by utilizing their 1700 MHz frequency AWS block  (similar to what T-Mobile has) in a 2×20 MHz implementation which ultimately results in speeds at or exceeding 80 Mbps. Right now, on Verizon’s 2×10 MHz block in their 700 MHz spectrum block most users are getting around half that, at 40 Mbps or less. Some users are getting more, but not much more.

So, Verizon’s XLTE as of yesterday has launched in a few dozen cities on a handful of devices and you don’t have to do anything other than live in the right city and have the right phone in order to get these faster AWS speeds. We would name the exact cities, but there are literally too many to name in order to not just give you a list of like 50 or 60 cities. The link above will let you know if your city is on Verizon’s XLTE list or not. However, even if you’re in an XLTE area, you will still need to have an XLTE enabled device and those aren’t necessarily that common since they have to be newer devices with the right modems inside. A full list of devices can be found on Verizon’s website.

In terms of smartphones, you have the following phones:

iPhone 5S, LG G2, Nokia Lumia Icon, Samsung Galaxy S5, Droid Mini by Motorola, HTC One M8, Apple iPhone 5C, DROID Maxx by Motorola, Moto X, LG Lucid 3, Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Samsung ATIV SE, HTC One Max, Samsung Galaxy S4, Blackberry Z30 and the Blackberry Q10

if you have a Verizon LTE tablet you need to have the following tablets to have XLTE service:

LG G Pad 8.3 LTE, Apple iPad Air, Apple iPad Mini, Samsung Galaxy tab 2, Samsung Galaxy Note Pro, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

And if you have a Verizon hotspot or USB modem you need to have  the following devices:
Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MiFi 5510L, Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MHS291L and the Verizon 4G LTE USB Modem UML295

While we haven’t had a chance to test these speeds quite yet, we’ll be sure to report back to you relatively soon with our Verizon HTC One M8 (which is capable of XLTE) and since we’re usually between San Diego and San Francisco, both markets are capable of supporting Verizon’s new XLTE service. Do keep in mind, however, that this is not LTE-Advanced, which is the next version of LTE service that is already running in places like Korea where they are able to get speeds in excess of 100 Mbps over commercially available devices. LTE-Advanced brings a whole host of features to smartphones, many of which are already inside of those phones, but the networks are simply not ready for quite yet. We know that Verizon is already working on their LTE-Advanced network and that this is likely a step forward in that direction in order to help them prepare for the jump.

The post Verizon Launches New 2×20 MHz AWS XLTE Service appeared first on VR World.

Many electronic devices come out of Taiwan. Success has been fleeting for several Asian-based manufacturers. Recently HTC said they see their second quarter returning positive numbers, but with declining revenue. Samsung, albeit troubled by the court loss to Apple, has been outselling HTC products. The company thinks its HTC One’s redesign will boast sales.

An Android alternative to Apple’s iOS, the G1, aka HTC Dream, gave HTC a head start a few years back which was soon eclipsed by Samsung’s entry into the Android market. The Galaxy series made a large footprint in the smartphone arena. Lately, HTC has had problems with their supply chain. Part of their realignment plan is to outsource product to contract manufacturers. Another bullet in the plan is a lowering of prices.

As in any industry, money talks and executives walk. Scott Croyle, Senior VP of Design is the latest to walk. After a five year stint with HTC, he is taking his Mechanical Engineering degree from the University of Texas to greener pastures, although he will still be “advising” on some HTC projects. It will be interesting to see where his philosophy of giving designers creative license to build unique and emotion evoking devices leads.
Jonah Becker who has worked closely with Croyle as Associate VP is expected to fill the vacated slot. Becker was trained in Industrial Design at the California College of the Arts (also known as Cal Arts).

Jonah Becker replaces Croyle at HTC

Announcing another change, HTC said: “Drew Bamford will lead HTC Creative Labs and focus on innovative new products and user experience strategies.” Additionally, HTC reported stronger than expected earnings based on HTC One M8 sales being stronger than expected. And, HTC plans to significantly step up their advertising push with the M8 as they’ve already successfully sold 500,000 units of the M8, according to Reuters, not just that, but the HTC One M8 is selling better than its predecessor, the M7 which we reviewed. In fact, today only, HTC is offering the new HTC One M8 for $100 off (on-contract) so that you can buy the One M8 for $100 on-contract with a new 2-year agreement.

We’ll keep an eye on HTC to see if these changes cause an uptick in their popularity and their bottom line.

The post As HTC Struggles Internally, HTC One M8 Expectations Grow appeared first on VR World.