Motorola Razr I Review!

Unboxing:

   The Motorola Razr I arrives in a simple box, it's merely wrapped in red colouring with some images of the device around the outside, but it's really quite an unspectacular box. The box is pleasant enough, but it doesn't scream premium in the same way that HTC's boxes or even Samsung's faux-wood effect do.

Design: 

   The Razr I isn't very similar to any devices which we've had the pleasure of playing with lately. It doesn't feel cheap in the same way that the Samsung Galaxy S3 does, instead the device is made of metal, Kevlar and you get a reassuring industrial feeling with the exposed screws down the side of the device.  

   The Kevlar is actually a really interesting addition; it's soft, feels slightly rubbery, but you know that it's the same stuff which they make bullet proof vests out of, which just makes you forget how it feels in the hand. Strangely the area where the camera and speaker are housed on the rear is made of glass and it does feel as though Motorola has mixed and matched their materials a fair bit with this phone.

   One of the things which Motorola is keen on peddling with this device is the 'edge-to-edge' display. It's a fair description of the display, but it's not quite as edge-to-edge as the American firm would have you believe. Instead, there are textured bezels on the sides, which are slightly raised from the screen, but they are notably thinner than the bezels we've handled on any other device. That thinness might have been taken off the sides, but it does feel as though Motorola has just stuck them right onto the bottom of the screen instead, with the phone having quite a notable 'chin'. The 'chin' blends well with the on-screen buttons of the phone, so you're never too sure where the screen ends and the bezels begin.

  Motorola have chosen to put all of their buttons on the right hand side of the phone, as you hold it. That means the on/off switch, volume rocker and the physical camera button are all on the same side. The Micro-USB port is stuck on the left-hand side, so it's not too much of an inconvenient placement.

  Display:

   The display is always going to be central to your smartphone and Motorola's choice to equip this device with an Amoled display is a great choice for this device. The screen is qHD, that's 960x540p, which is more than a good enough resolution for the 4.3" screen. Colours are oversaturated, as you would expect on this sort of display, and the only complaint which we would have is that the screen doesn't have the same brightness levels that some of Samsung's amoled displays have and it certainly isn't anywhere near as bright as some of the recent LCD displays.

   Performance:

   With Intel's single-core Z2460 processor clocked at 2Ghz running the show, many people were slightly concerned that the device wouldn't be able to keep up with the quad-core monsters of today. That couldn't really be further from the truth and instead the phone has no problem flicking between apps, web browsing or playing back video. 

   The only times when the phone didn't stay perfectly smooth was when you flick across to Motorola's quick toggle features page and the picture seems to stutter onto the screen, but the phone doesn't come close to grinding to a halt, it just means things aren't perfectly smooth when you swipe to this screen.

   Because this device is running on one of Intel's chips, there will be some concerns that people won't have access to all of their favourite Android apps. When Intel's processors were first optimised for Android, this was the case, but now there are very few apps which won't work with the processors and all of the apps which we tried worked flawlessly on the architecture.

   All in all the combination of a solid processor, Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and the relatively low resolution screen, make for all round good performance from this little phone.

  Storage:

   The Razr I is a little light on storage initial with the 8GB internal memory card only having 5GB of space available once Motorola has taken 3GB to keep the phones software contained. So 5GB will be more than enough for people's apps, but if you're thinking about taking your music collection with you on the fly then you might want to consider picking up an SD card to make the most of the SD slot on the device!

   Battery:

   This is perhaps on of the few points which we can criticise the Razr I in. If you're a heavy user then you won't be able to make it through a full day in the office, but if you use your phone for occasional texting, a few videos and phone calls and a bit of browsing or social networking then you can probably make do with nightly charges out of the 2000mAh battery pack. 

   It's worth bearing in mind that the battery in non-removable so if you're planning on keeping the device for a long period of time then things will only get worse. It's by no means a bad battery pack, but it's not ideal for the heaviest of users!

   Camera.

   The Razr I is blessed with a relatively good pair of cameras for a mid-range device. On the front there's a VGA camera which will meet all of your needs if you need to use Skype on the go, but you probably won't want to be taking selfies with this camera. 

   The rear 8MP camera on the other hand is a great addition. The pictures have enough detail when blown up and the ability to take full HD video at 30 frames per second is a great addition. There aren't any complaints with the sensors on the device given the price of the phone!

   Conclusions.

   We're pretty taken with this little thing, yes the battery isn't quite big enough for our liking, but for the majority of standard users and for most other people it will be more than suitable. As will the cameras, storage and screen and if we're honest you could pick one of these little guys up and be completely content, especially if you're not too taken with the larger devices at the moment!

   Rating:  8/10! There's a solid screen, great industrial design and a recent version of Android, there's not much to dislike here at all!

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T-Mobile Beat review!

Unboxing:

   The T-Mobile Beat arrives in a relatively plain box; there's certainly nothing too fancy here. Instead, you're greeted by T-Mobile's famous hot pink colour and some pleasant pictures of people milling around in the parks, naturally they all have their phones out too!

Design: 

   The Beat and the manufacturer, who is ZTE, have obviously taken a page out of Blackberry's book with this device, as you can see to the right.. The similarities might end with the touchscreen
and physical qwerty keyboard, but some of my family members were offended when they saw what they thought was a Blackberry in a decidedly Android household.

   As you would expect with this sort of budget device there isn't too much beyond the black plastic which curves around the device, except for the occasional glints of chrome-style plastic on the right hand side of the device, which are the unlock button and the volume rocker.

  There is one other thing which we're not big fans of is the location of the microUSB charging port at the top of the device. It just makes everything a bit uncomfortable if you're trying to text while the device is on charge!

  Display.

   Usually with modern devices this is the first thing which we look at when judging a phone, but with this device it's a little different. The screen on offer here is a small 2.4" screen with a resolution of 320 x 240p. If this was a smartphone we would instantly dismiss this as screen because it's also resistive, but in this instance the screen is actually perfectly respectable, especially when you consider the whole thing costs £15, we weren't even expecting a touchscreen, so this one is a bonus!

   There's really not that much to say about the screen other than you get the satisfying click when you've managed to select the thing on screen which you were aiming for, which we almost miss in modern capacitive screens.

   Performance:

   As with all feature phones there aren't too many hold ups here and we would even go as far as saying performance is good when scrolling through contacts and opening up messages. We did however, notice a notable lag when typing on the keys quickly and typically we would have to wait for the text to catch up before we could hit send.

   The software did puzzle us slightly because it is remarkably similar to Android in its implementation and we would not be surprised if ZTE were conducting an experiment and somehow managed to strip Android back to such an extent that no apps were supported any more and the OS flew on the weakest of modern phone hardware. That would be our guess as to what we have here.

   Talking of apps Twitter, Windows Live (unsupported now), Facebook and a browser are all pre-installed on the phone, but we've been unable to locate any Java apps which were compatible with the phone, so we think that's what you'll be stuck with, but again the price is so low, it's hard to expect any more!

   Battery.

   Whilst using feature phones you'll be amazed at the battery life you can get out of them. The thing is though there's a few reasons why they last so long. The first is that they're not checking for email all the time, although the Beat can handle that. The second is that there typically isn't support
for 3G mobile networks, and it's true to say that the Beat only has 2G connectivity and lastly, the lack of apps means that you won't pull your phone out to play Angry Birds on the train.

   That being said if you text a fair bit, you can set the T-Mobile Beat's screen to full brightness and expect to get about three days of battery life if you're a big texter and a fair bit more if you aren't and we can't wait until smartphones can give us similar performance.

   Camera.

   There's only one camera on this little phone and it's a 3.2MP rear-facing shooter. There's no flash, there's just the basic app and the photos will only be taken if you've inserted an SD card into the phone. That might be a pain for some people, but if you need to take a picture of something in a hurry or in an emergency this will do the job, but otherwise we'd suggest using a little point and shoot instead of the camera on here, because you won't want to look over your holiday snaps if you take them all on this phone!

   Conclusions.

   We're not used to reviewing this sort of phone here, but if you need a back up phone, or you want to take something which won't break on a camping trip, you won't find too much which is better value for money.

   We're not sure we'd give this to a young child to play with because it won't stand up to the sort of beating which they would put it through, but even if it does break, there's not too much value there and they might even like that this thing looks like a Blackberry!

   Rating:  7/10! For a feature phone at this price, you can't really go wrong!

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Samsung announce the Galaxy S4 zoom! A real cameraphone!

   It turns out that the leaks and everything else were spot on as today Samsung have announced what we hope is the final device in their Galaxy S4 line-up, the Galaxy S4 zoom.

   As you can see from the image above this isn't your conventional smartphone. Instead it's the definition of a camera phone with the front looking just like a normal Galaxy smartphone and then there's that monstrous camera stuck onto the back. So the size would suggest that this is a good

camera and to be honest it's not a bad option with a 16MP sensor which has 10x optical zoom, so this could be a really good camera replacement. The front facing camera is more of what you would expect on a smartphone with a 1.9MP sensor being employed here.

   But, let's not forget that this is also a smartphone and as purely a phone this device would be a mid-range handset. Up front there's a 4.3-inch qHD, that's a 540 x 960p display, which will be driven along by a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and 8GB of internal storage, but you will only have 5GB of that free. Mercifully though Samsung have included a MicroSD slot to store those snaps on!

   One thing which does concern us is the 2330mAh battery, which although it is removable, probably won't last too long if you're taking and uploading pictures all day, especially if you're making the most of the 4G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and NFC sensors too!

   The device will be coming to various places around the world, including the UK, during the summer, but we don't have any more details than that at the moment!

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iOS 7 commentary courtesy of hilarious spoof videos!

   During the last few days we've had the chance to have our first look at the new iOS 7 design language which is going to be rolling out to all iOS devices later in the year. As you can see from the picture to the right, things are going to be louder, slightly more cartoon-y and notably different to how they look now.

   Obviously opinion will be split on this redesign, but people never like change to begin with, but in the long-term it's for the best because iOS has to all intents and purposes looked the same since it was first introduced six years ago!

   Usually we're not ones for parodies, but in this instance we're going to make an exception because the video embedded below is simply hilarious and perhaps it's something to do with the way that the video actually manages to reflect a degree of truth! If you're interested in a great overview of all of the changes then check out this post here from TheVerge.

   Check it out and let us know what you think of it in the comments below and remember this is meant to be funny!

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Did Samsung really dilute their product line too much?

   In the last week you will have seen the reports which showed that Samsung has 6% of the value wiped from their shares or the equivalent of $7.7 billion dollars because of fears that the Samsung Galaxy S4 won't sell so well because of their recent announcements of the Galaxy S4 Active and the Galaxy S4 Mini.

   The general idea is that these devices will be cheaper than the Galaxy S4 which will mean lower income numbers and obviously lower profit. I think this has been coming for a while and I'm going to play the name as many Samsung Galaxy phones as you can without thinking for more than 5 seconds in between them game... Here I go:

Galaxy S4, Note, Note 2, S2, OG S, Galaxy Pocket, Galaxy Music, S3, Mega 5.8, Mega 6.3, Galaxy Camera (doesn't really count I know), Galaxy Y, Galaxy Young, Galaxy S2 Plus, S4 Active, S4 Mini, S3 Mini, Galaxy Ace 1, 2 and is there a third one? Galaxy Xcover 1 and 2, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S2 Plus and I'm stuck.

   So that right there is Samsung's problem, but it's also part of their success. Samsung's strategy has been to try to cover every part of the market and as such it seems as though there has either been a new phone or tablet from the company each week for as long as I can remember.

   I believe that the reality is that people will still aspire to own the Galaxy S flagship or the Galaxy Note because they're top of the Samsung pile, but obviously Samsung need to cut down the amount of other devices like the S2 Plus and the Mega devices because they just make people confused. Confusion leads to indecision and when other companies get their acts together and offer compelling alternatives then Samsung might have a problem, but for the moment Samsung offer the best phones for the mid and low range market and that's why the alphabet and array of numbers above is working, that might start changing in the future though and Samsung need to be aware of what their competitors are doing.

   The share price shouldn't be too much of a concern because Apple have been having similar issues with their share prices lately, so I don't believe this is too big of a deal and Samsung will carry on as always. Now Samsung where are you hiding that Android 4.2.2 update for the S3?

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How the Galaxy S4 made me realise WIndows RT has a future!

   Earlier today the guys over at Clove posted this lovely little diagram above and it got us thinking: about where phones are at the moment. Something which especially stood out was Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 800 processor. 

   The Snapdragon 800 is set to be one of the most powerful mobile processors available and it will be clocked at 2.2GHz maximum speed. The dual-core Core i5 in my laptop is clocked at 2.7GHz and while it's more powerful at the moment it's only a matter of time before ARM-based processors out do the Intel and AMD chipsets in our laptops. 

   That ladies and gentlemen is why I think Windows RT has a future and will become increasingly influential in the coming years. A big thanks to the Samsung Galaxy S4 and Clove for helping me reach that conclusion!

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The Future of TheTechFront: Summer's here and it's time to adapt!

   Hi guys, a couple of weeks have past since I last updated you on the site and my summer is in full swing and as some of you may be aware I'm a university student and I'm coming into my third and final year now and managing and keeping this website going takes between three or four hours a day. This in itself isn't too much bother because I enjoy doing it, but now I've had a couple of weeks to reflect I think that with a dissertation to write as well as a full set of modules to go with it, it's best if this project is put slightly on the back burner.

   That does NOT mean that I won't post anything at all, but it will mean that instead of giving you the daily news this will turn into a more editorial and more one off blog for the foreseeable future. This will let me spend the summer with my girlfriend before she moves to Spain next year and it will basically help me manage my work and play commitments much better as September approaches.

   Talking of work, some people might have noticed the Asus products which have been reviewed on the website a lot more and there's a very good reason for that. I'm one of the eight new Student ambassadors for Asus in the UK. This is a great opportunity for me and it's not something which I could turn down. A big part of that role will be writing for the new 'Study in Style' website which still isn't live as I post this, but it may well be by the time you get to read this and you can find that website here! If anyone reading this wants me to write infrequently for your website then just contact this site's email or my Twitter and I'll definitely think about it, because this is what I love doing!

   With all of that in mind, I hope to see some of you on here regularly for more reviews, especially app reviews, as well as a lot more of my opinion! Ohhh and as a passing note if you want news I'd recommend The Verge, Engadget, TheNextWeb and especially Slashgear, who are my personal favourites! All those sites are great all round tech news cover-ers (?). 

   Anyways, thanks for reading this and more importantly thank you for continuing to read the blog!

   All the best,

James.

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In Other News:05/06/2013.

• Digitimes believe that OLED screens are going to be in high demand this year and you will probably so they expect the supply to demand ratio to be '1%'. We're not sure exactly what that means, but we assume it means that there will only be 1% more produced when everything is working at capacity than there is demand!
  Via PhoneArena.

• Yahoo have redesigned their search page to make everything more a bit more modern and lovely looking. The aim is to put your results 'front and centre' or center depending on your preference.
  Via TheVerge.

• Samsung and Jay Z are said to be working on a new multi-million dollar streaming deal. We're not sure what exactly it would be, but it could be some sort of tie in with Samsung's Music Hub feature!
  Via Slashgear.

• AT&T are continuing their US 4G LTE roll out and amongst the latest batch, all of which can be found here, are Colorado Springs, Fort Wayne and Columbus!
  Via Phandroid. 

• Jetpack Joyride has fuinally landed on Windows Phone 8 today!
  Via WPCentral.

• Windows RT 8.1 is set to get it's own version of Outlook!
  Via Slashgear.

And finally, the video below shows off some of these new features on the update to Windows 8.1! Check it out! We like the photos on the unlock screen!

Via Slashgear.

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Could this be the HTC One Mini?

   HTC might on the face of it be pursuing a flagship only policy this year, but the reality is that without a bit more in their range the company simply won't sell enough devices to turn their fortunes around. That's why a lot of people believe a device like the one pictured above will come into its own. So is this a HTC One Mini which has been spotted a bit before it's time?

   The device was spotted over on the Estonian site forte.delfi.ee and if they're correct then there's a 4.3-inch screen with a nice 720p resolution, a dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage and a 4-megapixel UltraPixel camera.

   Obviously this is all speculation on our part because we're not sure how accurate the 'leak' is, but it looks as though it could be legitimate and Forte believe the device will be available in August for around the €400 mark! That price will probably be a fair bit more than Samsung's upcoming S4 Mini will cost, but we'll have to wait and see!
Forte Via Engadget.

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Samsung officially announce the Galaxy S4 Active!

   We've heard a lot about it and we already assumed it was part of the family from the mass of leaked images, but here it is in it's full glory, the officially announced Samsung Galaxy S4 Active. As we expected this is a ruggedised version of Galaxy S4, but there's some interesting trade offs in this variant of the phone.

   For example, much remains the same there's still a 1.9GHz quad-core processor, which we assume is the same Snapdragon 600 as in the original Galaxy S4, but there's also a few changes. The screen for example isn't the same 1080p amoled display, instead the Active is rocking a 1080p TFT LCD display, which could possibly be down to supply issues of the amoled variant. 

   One other thing which has been switched out is the 13MP camera from the S4, replaced in this case by an 8MP sensor which you can use to take pictures under water too! Samsung have chosen to offer an 'Aqua Mode' for the camera, which allows you to 'increase visual quality and clarity for enhanced underwater images and video' and it also lets you use the volume down key as a shutter button for the camera too!

   Because this is a rugged smartphone it has had to receive certification for the durability and this device has returned with an IP67 rating. This means that it's both dust and water resistant and it can tolerate being in up to 1 meter of water for up to 30 minutes!

   The device will be rocking Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean on launch and there will be 4G LTE, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and a 2600 mAh battery crammed into those rather good looking frames!

   All in all this is a nice device and if you want one then in the future they will pop up in 'urban grey', 'dive blue' and 'orange flare', the latter of which are to the right and the former is above. The S4 Active will go on sale in the US and Sweden initially and it will probably branch out after that. Keep your eyes on Samsung's June 20th event for some hands on action!

   The full press release is available here and check out the full spec sheet in the image below!

Click to enlarge.

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In Other News: 04/06/2013.

• HTC's Russian branch has seemingly confirmed that the Android 4.2.2 update for the HTC One will arrive in the middle of this month!
  Twitter Via PocketNow.

• Intel have shown off their new and homemade LTE modem chip! The company has said that the new modem will be paired with 22nm quad-core Atom SoCs for tablets initially. These will have global roaming capabilities and will land on shelves "towards the end of the back to school season."
  Via Engadget.

• Intel has teased fanless tablets running Intel's Core line of processors at this year's Computex, which means that tablets of tomorrow will be a lot more powerful. The trick here though is that the processors are Intel's new Haswell chips!
  Via Engadget.

• Sky have updated their Sky+ app for Android with added support for proper advanced search functionality and Google-esque instant search results as you type.
  Via PocketLint.

• It seems that Zynga is shuttering the OMGPOP studio who were behind their cult game 'Draw Something'!
  Via TheVerge.

And finally, Three UK have been having data issues all day, but according to their Twitter team everything is back up and working how it should now!

The data issue has been resolved across the UK :-) We're so sorry to those who were affected! Any ongoing issues tweet @threeuksupport
— ThreeUK (@ThreeUK) June 4, 2013

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Toshiba announce a trio of Android tablets!

   Toshiba have today confirmed the arrival of three new tablets all of which are running the latest version of Android, version 4.2, but they all have slightly different people in mind.

   At the bottom of the pile in terms of price and specs will be the Toshiba Excite Pure, which is a budget 10.1" tablet with a solid set of specs. The screen will have a respectable 1280 x 800p resolution and 10 point input support, this will easily be pushed along by the quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor and 1GB of RAM. Storage will be good too with 16GB of internal storage and a microSD card slot for expansion. There's a pair of cameras too with a 3-megapixel option on the rear and a 1.2-megapixel sensor on the front, and there will be WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and a 3G option and this tablet will start from £249 when it lands in the UK

   After the Excite Pure come the higher-priced specialised devices which have certain features in common. Both the Excite Pro and Excite Write share 10.2-inch 2560 x 1600 PixelPure displays and now there's 10-finger touch support and the Excite Write features Corning's Gorilla Glass 2.

   Both of these tablets will be be driven by Nvidia's latest Tegra 4 processor and 2GB of RAM which should give great performance and there's your choice of 16GB and 32GB models both of which feature microSD card slots for storage expansion. Connectivity options are also great on these devices with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and 3G/4G LTE for mobile data available too. Both of the tablets feature 8-megapixel cameras with LED flash in on the rear and 1.2-megapixel cameras up front, the Write has the additional "Digitizer Pen" which basically makes it into a Note device!

   Both of these devices will have a price to reflect their spec sheet with the Excite Pro starting at £349 and the Excite Write starting at £499 and these devices will e exclusive to Currys and PC World in the UK!
Via PocketLint.

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Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 processor to power Windows RT 8.1 devices as the Snapdragon 400 gets updated with LTE!

   With rumours running that Microsoft is looking to cut the licensing costs of Windows RT its' interesting that development doesn't seem to be slowing down behind the scenes with Qualcomm announcing plans to work with Microsoft to offer Snapdragon 800 processors for Windows RT 8.1!

   Just in case you haven't heard of Qualcomm's most powerful processor at the moment then the Snapdragon 800 is a beast of a processor which has integrated 3G and 4G support as well as speeds of up to 2.2GHz. This processor will be available later in the year along with the update to Windows RT!

   That's what Qualcomm are doing with the high-end devices, but in the mid-range Qualcomm's Snapdragon 400 has been refreshed with four ARM Cortex A7 processors and built-in 4G LTE. The additions of 4G LTE and it being a quad-core processor makes this a much more marketable processor and is something which they needed to do given the plans of Mediatek to launch a 4G SoC for the mid-range later in the year!
Via HotHardware and AndroidBeat.

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HTC lose their COO as May sales help the company back onto the right track!

   HTC's flagship the HTC One is finally starting to take off, but it seems that hasn't been enough to stem the departures from the company! The latest loss for HTC has come in the form of the Chief Operating Officer, Matthew Costello.

   Costello will be stepping back to work in a new quality assurance team, this news was discovered by Bloomberg who managed to get their hands on an insiders email. This  email revealed that Costello's position will be fulfilled by Fred Liu, who now has a considerable role at HTC!

   As part of the new quality assurance team Georges Boulloy will step forward to work on things around quality assurance and there will be more people who will be charged with “product lifecycle matters”, which we assume refers to Android updates.

   It's not all bad for HTC because they've announced that they raked in NT$29 billion (US$ 970 million) in revenue for the month of May this year! That's not quite up to last year's levels, but it is only 3% less than the same time last year, which isn't too shabby at all and it's a 50% increase on revenues from April! The growth is expected into June as sales of the HTC continue!
Bloomberg Via Slashgear and TNW.

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Sony announce the Xperia M: Mid-range handset coming Q3.

   Sony are back with yet another mobile phone today and this time the Xperia M is the latest in their range of alphabet titled devices. This is definitely not one of the expensive handsets in Sony's range, but if it's well priced it will prove to be another solid device for the company.

   Internally the Xperia M features a 1GHz dual-core processor from the guys at Qualcomm, 1GB of RAM, along with 4GB of internal storage which thankfully is microSD expandable. Up front you'll be able to enjoy Android 4.1 Jelly Bean through the 4 inch FWVGA, that's 480 x 854p, TFT display. The
camera arrangement is nothing spectacular, but the 5MP Exmor RS sensor on the rear is paired with an unspecified front facing option too and there's the added bonus of a dedicated camera button on the device too!

   The device will arrive in Q3 this year and it will be available in your choice of black, white, purple or a lovely yellow colour and because this is a budget handset there's both single-SIM and dual-SIM functionality here.
Via XperiaBlog.

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