The Brick – Hands on

Remember when all mobile handsets were huge? Do you remember the big hairstyles from the 1980's? Leggings? Yo-Yo’s? Wham? Aha?

A short while ago we spotted this, which is suitably named “The Brick”. It’s designed to look like those early mobile handsets, but with a couple of key differences. Firstly, it doesn’t weigh as much. Secondly, it’s technically superior and thirdly, it’ll work with today’s modern cellular networks.

We’ve got a review of this handset right around the corner, but I thought you guys would appreciate a video overview to show what it’s like to use. Oh, and apologies for the wind in the background..

Our review will be available in just a few days, so check back to learn more. You can buy it from The Carphone Warehouse for less than £50 or get more info on the Binatone website.

Here’s a few teaser photos too..

Hands on with the Nexus 5

 

Available to buy right now, this is the Nexus 5 running the all-new version of Android, KitKat 4.4. It has a 5 inch screen, Snapdragon 800 quad-core 2.3GHz processor and a camera that adds a bit of DSLR fun. The camera also has a new lens to capture more light and create sharp action shots.

 

Other specs include a 2300mAh battery, dual-band WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and a 3.5mm audio port. That screen, by the way, is a 1920×1080 pixel at 445ppi and it has Gorilla Glass protection. The rear camera is an 8 megapixel shooter with OIS and all the extra fancy lens tech, plus there’s also a front-facing 1.3 megapixel shooter for video calls etc. On board you’ll find 16GB of storage (although O2 have the exclusive on the network 32GB version). No mention of an SD card that we can see.

The guys at Three have done a fantastic hands-on of the phone along with a look at KitKat. We really can’t recommend tis video highly enough if you’re looking to purchase..

Get yours from Google direct in the Play Store it is available from £299 for the 16GB and £339 for the 32GB.

More as we get it, and we will have additional photos soon.

Hands on with the LG G2 at the UK launch party

 

The LG G2 was announced on the 7th of August in New York and in true LG style the UK sort of got left behind, the G2 is only just starting to appear at retailers and networks.

 

Last night we attended the UK launch party in London and here are my initial impressions  and a load of pictures of the device. The main things I wanted to check out was the screen quality, the camera and the rather unique rear buttons. So how did they all shape up?

So the LG G2 is a rather nice device in looks and in performance, it has top of the range specs and a whole host of software additions to allow it to compete with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S,4 the HTC One and the Google Nexus 5. So in no particular order here are some of my thoughts about the LG G2.

The main thing the LG guys wanted to show us was its video capabilities, 1080p videos look glorious on its screen, there are also some fancy things that the video player does as well. Firstly you can zoom in on a video whilst it is playing, with no noticeable lag or glitching. Secondly there is something called audio zoom in video as well, so if you recorded a video of five people talking at the same time you can highlight one person and it plays only their audio. Impressive stuff but I’d love to see how these things actually work in the real world.

Knock On the double tap to wake function is pretty cool. You double tap to wake the device and then you can unlock as normal, you can also double tap the screen again to lock the device and turn the screen off.

The open panel flip case is pretty cool, it lets you unlock the device by flipping the case open and also it is made of the same material as the G2 backplate itself so it flows seamlessly.

The screen viewing angles are great, as good as my Note 3. Being an IPS display it seemed a little duller and little less saturated.

The camera has a load of different modes and options, the performance of the camera was comparable to my Lumia 925 and slightly better than my Note 3. Again real life testing will be called for here. The same goes for OIS video capture which seemed a little jumpy when we tested it.

There is a guest mode which allows you to set up a guest area which is accessed by a different unlock code, this mode allows you to choose which apps you allow to be used by your guest.

The homescreen allows you to edit icons and change them into 1×1 or 2×2 icons. Further fiddling allows you to create something a bit akin to Windows Phone or Blinkfeed in appearance.

Miracast streaming to a large screen TV was amazing, we played a few games streamed from the G2 on a huge 52? screen and it was great fun.

LG have added an additional multi tasking mode to the G2, in addition to the normal Android one, swipe an app away with three fingers and it gets added to a multitasking app. Swipe in from the left and you get a fancy display of ready apps.

The LG software doesn’t seem anywhere as bloated as Samsung Galaxy software

The rear button really makes sense when you have it in your hand, it will definitely took some getting used to though.

Lastly the white one looked amazing.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 – Hands on

Today I nipped to the local Three store to obtain a SIM card,. While there I was just making general enquiries about the Galaxy Note 3, the guy serving me said that the Samsung retail rep was in the store and they should be told release dates today.

At this I mobbed introduced myself to the rep and managed to prize the Note 3 from him.

Here’s my thoughts. .

Firstly let me apologise for the photo quality. I was trying to do it all “sneaky like”, but with the Note 2 is not that easy. I don’t know if the Three staff were happy but Nathan (the Samsung rep) was more than happy. In fact he was taking pictures of me taking pictures.

The actual device size? It’s more or less the same size as my Note 2, but with a smaller bezel and therefore a larger screen. Oh that screen! It’s awesome. The pictures do not do it justice. It’s crystal clear, pin sharp and nice and bright with really deep colours. The device is more Note 1 or Galaxy S2 shaped, and the “fake leather” does feel like leather (although the rep said this was not the finished version, which feels even better), so that’s me fooled.

The S-Pen can be inserted into the device anyway round (no more jammed pens if little ones get hold of it), and has clever features, like the ability to hand-write a phone number in a note, but call it straight from there.

I also drew a circle around the Flipboard widget and the whole article was then posted into a note.

The rep did say that devices were arriving in the UK as we speak, so hopefully not long till they are available …

Do I want one. ? …. I do now ….