Phones > More stories
ZTE Open: This dirt-cheap smartphone is a swing and a miss
Review Of the various open source Android challengers currently under development, the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox OS was the first to reach the market with actual, commercially available products. The ZTE Open smartphone is one such product. Unfortunately, that's about all it's got going for it.
When ZTE started selling the Open via …
Samsung Galaxy S4 Active: The mobe for CHUCK NORRIS TYPES
Review The key advantage Sony’s Xperia Z has over the Samsung Galaxy S4 is its IP57-rated waterproofing.
However, Samsung hasn’t got where it is today by sitting still and letting a rival get away with any sort of competitive upper hand, so now we have an S4 that carries an IP67 rating. Enter the S4 Active.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Active …
Huawei Ascend Mate: The phondleslab for the skint
Review Whether you think VLPs (Very Large Phones™) are the ultimate evolution of the personal telecommunication device or the bastard offspring of smartphone and tablet, there’s no doubting the little – well, not so little really – buggers are racing out of the woodwork. Most are rather expensive but Huawei’s Ascend Mate, like the …
Huawei Ascend P6: Skinny smartphone that's not just bare bones
Review Just who the heck does Huawei think it is? Surely it is the purveyor of budget Android tat and carrier-branded dreck? I’m loathe to use the word "landfill" because some of its newer cheap handsets, like the 4.5-inch Ascend GS510, aren’t actually that bad and I’d certainly take one in preference to an appless, gutless, webcam- …
Samsung Mega 6.3: Enter the PHONDLESLAB
Review Some made-up words deserve a place in the popular lexicon. I’m thinking about “friscalating” or “omnishambles”. Others, like the wholly wretched term “phablet”, most certainly do not. So from now on I’ll be calling smartphones with screens between 5 and 7 inches VLPs, or Very Large Phones. Anyone using the word phablet in my …
Caterpillar B15: The Android smartphone for the building site
Review There’s no doubt that smartphones are getting more robust. Both the Sony Xperia Z and the forthcoming Samsung Galaxy S4 Active boast IP57-rated resistance to dust and water intrusion which is handy if you take your phone to the beach or the pool and come over all clumsy.
Drop either of them out of a third-floor window on a …
BlackBerry's retro-look QWERTY Q5 mobe: Resentment by design
Review BlackBerry’s second QWERTY-sporting BB10 device is a real puzzler.
BlackBerry has packed most of the horsepower of the first BB10 QWERTYphone, the Q10, in a cheaper package. And it performs almost as well, giving a slick experience with no judder or lag.
It also offers enterprises that scoop up BlackBerrys by the thousands a …
Nokia Lumia 925: The best Windows Phone yet
Review According to Nokia, the new Lumia 925 is its "third flagship" phone at the moment. It hasn’t retired the other two Lumias (the 920 and the 928) which continue to sail proudly alongside the 925, with all their flags fluttering.
However there are times when one must wave a pedantic arm from the back of the class where the naughty …
Asus FonePad: You may feel a bit of a spanner
Review Do you really need a smartphone and a tablet? One overly expensive device with a screen and a battery that are both just a bit too small for comfort in this day and age to use for voice calls and cellular data, and a larger, Wi-Fi-connected gadget with a 7- or 8-inch screen for browsing the web, reading ebooks and watching …
Review: Sony Xperia SP
Sony’s flagship Android smartphones have been a bit of a disappointment to me. But if the Xperia S and Xperia T didn’t quite cut the Colman’s, the cheaper follow-ups, the Xperias P and V, were more convincing. Sony, it seems, is better in the middle than at the top.
Now the new Xperia Z - another high-end Sony that didn't really …
Review: Samsung Galaxy S4
In purely commercial terms, the Samsung Galaxy S III was always going to be a tough act to follow. After all, it established and then cemented Samsung’s position as the number one smartphone maker by volume - and the only one to give Apple the collywobbles.
I suspect that’s why Samsung has played it safe and opted for evolution …
Review: BlackBerry Q10
One of my four-year-olds pointed to a BlackBerry Bold recently and exclaimed "It's HALF A PHONE!". She was pointing at the screen. And the other half? The answer, I elicited later, was that it was some kind of letters game.
Just think about that for a moment. Every day of your life you've seen adults pawing at a phone, but only …
Review: Nokia Lumia 520
A few years ago the late music magazine The Word coined the phrase "landfill indie" to describe the thousands of generic groups it encountered. Today the shops are full of "landfill Android": utterly generic, non-too-inspiring handsets. It’s into this Valley of Death that Nokia tosses its new Lumia 520.
In the UK, the average …
Review: Nokia Lumia 720
Nokia completed its Windows 8 range with two new models recently, including this midrange offering the 720. With a choice of five Lumias it's now clearer to see what Nokia hopes to achieve.
The 720 strikes me as the Ford Cortina of the Lumias, a well made mass market compact. The 720 has everything going for it except, perhaps, …
Review: Asus PadFone 2 phone-tablet combo
I thought the first Asus PadFone was a jolly good idea the moment I clapped eyes on it. Sadly it never made it to these shores but the PadFone 2 has. In a nutshell, what we have here is an Android smartphone that can be docked into a dumb tablet giving you not only a choice of two screen sizes but also the convenience of one …
Review: Jabra Revo Wireless headphones
I’ve tried a fair few wireless headphones over the past ten years, almost all of them unsatisfactory in one way or another. Many of the early ones were over-the-ear jobs with those round-the-back-of-your-head bands, but all suffered from either excessive weight - thanks to the on-board battery - or simply didn’t play for long. …
Review: HTC One
A year ago, I finished off my review of HTC’s One X by predicting great things for it and its maker. And then Samsung’s Galaxy S3 merrily outsold it ten to one. Thing is, that wasn’t a case of me being a colossal twit. The One X is the better phone - it’s better made, better looking and better to use.
Luckily for HTC, the new …
Review: Sony Xperia Z
How it must gall Sony to find that along with the likes of HTC, ZTE and LG it is now firmly in the second division of Android phone makers, floundering in the spume and wake of the global sales monster that is Samsung.
Sony Xperia Z Xperia Z: a bit of a slab
Personally I blame a ludicrously complex model portfolio as much as …
Review: Seagate Wireless Plus Wi-Fi hard drive
In the week Apple finally released an iPad with a storage capacity greater than 64GB - double that; 128GB to be precise - Seagate made its Wireless Plus available. Of course, if Apple’s Flash mark-up wasn’t so colossal, or it had had the wit to either built a Micro SD port into its tablets or allow USB mass storage devices to …
Review: HTC 8X Windows Phone 8 handset
It’s hard not to feel a little sorry for HTC. Eighteen months ago it was the darling of smartphone manufacturers having reinvented itself from a maker of unbranded handsets for the likes of O2 to an outfit boasting some of the best Android smartphones around.
HTC 8X Windows Phone 8 Platform alteration: HTC's 8X Windows Phone 8 …
Nokia Lumia 820 WinPho 8 review
The Nokia Lumia 820 is the second of Nokia's two new Windows phones. It's the neglected sibling of the flagship Lumia 920, and is barely mentioned in Nokia's presentations. But I found it a very capable handset, with plenty to commend it. Why does this sound a bit familiar?
Nokia Lumia 820 Windows Phone 8 Nokia's Lumia 820: It …
Nokia HERE iOS maps app review
There’s never been a better time to publish a mapping app for iOS. Apple’s own Maps app is a laughing stock and Google is apparently dithering over whether to bother submitting an app version of its mapping solution for Apple’s approval, or lack thereof. So Nokia has stepped into the breach with HERE, a re-branded version of its …
Acer CloudMobile S500 Android phone review
When I recently took a quick shufti at the alternatives on offer to anyone harbouring doubts about the iPhone 5 I stuck my neck out and awarded a Recommended badge to a phone I’d only used briefly at a trade show. After using it for a week has my enthusiasm waned? Nope.
Acer CloudMobile S500 Android smartphone Bargain blower: …
Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 handset review
If you ever go down the pub and let slip you’re a tech writer, you’re invariably asked for recommendations. With smartphones, this is pretty difficult these days because they’re all pretty good. No, scrap that, today’s devices are just amazing compared to what you could get a few years ago. They all do a job; you can’t really …
Sony Xperia T Android smartphone review
Featuring in that new James Bond film, the Sony Xperia T may not be 007’s most advanced piece of kit, but it is one piece of Skyfall hardware that you can actually buy. Sony is clearly throwing the kitchen sink at the publicity effort, plastering bill board ads with the device and paying what must surely be an awful lot to be …
LG Vu 5in Android phone-tablet review
Mercedes vs BMW, Boeing vs Airbus, Asda vs Tesco: the world is full of directly competing commercial entities locked in a bitter struggle for market share. In Korea, Samsung and LG go head-to-head in much the same way, so it's no surprise that LG has cooked up a rival to Samsung’s Galaxy Note.
LG Vu The LG Vu doesn't seem so …
View 21 IPTV Freeview+HD DVR review
The Freeview+ HD market has suddenly sparked into life. Having spent an age coasting on the coattails of Humax’s HDR-FOXT2, there are suddenly a slew of better-specified recorders hitting the streets. The View21 VW11FVRHD50 is one such newbie, mixing Freeview+ HD with IPTV connected services. While it doesn’t offer full-on Catch …
Just how good is Nokia's PureView 41Mp camera tech?
When I first learnt about Nokia's 808 PureView phone featuring a 41Mp camera, I thought I'd either misread the specs or I'd somehow stepped into the future. A forty one megapixel camphone – WTF? Not even professional DSLRs showcase such a high resolution.
Nokia 808 PureView 41Mp camphone Nokia's 808 PureView 41Mp camphone …
Samsung Galaxy Note 2 review
I’ve no idea what the Korean is for “let’s stuff everything we can into a phone and ram it up Apple’s jacksie” but it’s a fair bet the phrase was used at the inception of the Galaxy Note 2. This Android handset is the feature-packed successor to the surprisingly successful Galaxy Note that I was quite taken with late last year …
Apple iPhone 5 review
Review Time was, smartphones did little that was actually smart. They had front-facing cameras and maybe a touchscreen, but operating systems geared more for a stylus than fingers. It wasn’t until the iPhone landed in 2007 that things changed. For the next few years Apple continued to deliver the brainiest of smartphones. No one else …
Nokia Asha 311 budget smartphone review
Nokia’s smartphone sales may be in the toilet at the moment but it still flogs a fair number of handsets under the Asha brand of feature phones. Newest to the ranks is the Asha 311 which looks and behaves a bit like a smartphone but has a far lower purchase price – around £100 unlocked and SIM-free.
Nokia Asha 311 budget …
Samsung Galaxy Beam Android projector phone review
Samsung's first Galaxy Beam, the GT-i8520, was a tremendously thick, heavy and expensive handset that very few bought. Having had a rethink, the company is now trying the whole smartphone-with-a-projector idea again with the GT-i8530. Essentially, this handset amounts to a Galaxy Advance S with a Digital Light Processing …
Huawei Ascend P1 Android review
Huawei’s entry level Ascend G300 smartphone has already been favourably reviewed in these pages and the eagerly awaited Ascend D quad is only a few months away. Between those two devices sits the new Ascend P1 – a handset aimed not at the impecunious or the power-mad but at Joe Average. Evidently, it’s a phone designed to steal …
Sony Xperia Go waterproof Android phone review
The arrival of the Nexus 7 has given me cause to reconsider my next phone purchase. Do I need a 4.6in superphone now I have a 7in Tegra 3 tablet? Surely a small, rugged handset with good battery life, a decent dual-core CPU and plenty of storage for apps would make more sense. An outright purchase price of around £200 would be …
LG Optimus 4X HD quad-core Android phone review
I was never much of a fan of LG’s Android phones, they struck me as rather ordinary and frequently hampered by an unhealthy obsession with 3D. But suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere South Korea’s other phone maker has delivered an absolute blinder. Between you and me, this may prove to be the best Android handset of 2012.
LG …
Panasonic Eluga DL1 waterproof Android
Review Over the course of the last decade Panasonic all but vanished from the European consumer mobile phone market but it’s back with a bang with the Eluga - an acronym of ‘elegant user-oriented gateway’. Or at least back with a loud thump - the bang is really the Eluga Power, a 5in 720p Qualcomm Krait-powered beast due later this …
Orange San Diego Intel-based Android phone
Review If you own a smartphone then you are almost certainly using an ARM CPU. That’s good for ARM and its licensees but bad for Intel, as it wants a piece of the vast mobile chip market. Cue the San Diego, a retail version of Intel’s own Gigabyte-built smartphone reference platform built around a hyper-threading 1.6GHz Z2460 Atom …
FileMaker Bento 4
iOS App of the Week When the iPad was first launched it was very much considered to be a device for content consumption, rather than a proper computer that could be used for work. Apps like Bento show that the iPad is, in fact, a very practical work tool.
Bento 4 iPad app screenshot Choose a template...
There’s been an iOS version of the Bento …
Sony SmartWatch Android remote
Review Sony has tried this remote phone manager and viewer malarkey before with its LiveView that first appeared almost two years ago. The idea was sound but the execution was somewhat undermined by the fact it just didn’t work. Evidently, Sony thinks it’s time for another crack at this concept with the SmartWatch
Sony SmartWatch …
FolderSync
Android App of the Week When Microsoft recently offered users 25GB of free SkyDrive storage it highlighted the lack of a good Android app to take advantage of it. Enter FolderSync, which lets you synchronise your Android folders with SkyDrive and just about every other cloud storage supplier.
FolderSync supports most of the popular commercial cloud …
Huawei Ascend G300 budget Android
Review As an example of how much the budget smartphone has come on over the last 12 months you need look no further than Huawei's G300, which at £100 pre-paid is Vodafone’s latest entry-level Android smartphone.
Huawei Ascend G300 Android smartphone Cost conscious: Huawei's Ascend G300
What do you get for your 100 spondulicks? A 480 …
Crime Map
iOS App of the Week It’s often been said that there’s big difference between the public’s perception of crime – getting worse all the time, the country’s going to the dogs, blah-Daily-Mail-blah – and the actual crime figures that have shown a decrease in recent years.
Of course, there’s plenty of statistical information about UK crime rates …
