Nokia Lumia 920 Review

The Nokia Lumia 920 probably isn't for the typical phone user. The Nokia Lumia 920 beautifully shows you all the features of the newly released Windows Phone 8 OS. It is big and bold, and it takes a dedicated smartphone user to fully appreciate the power of the Nokia Lumia 920. But if you are looking for the most powerful Windows Phone right now, this is the phone for you. Other than being currently the most powerful Windows 8 smartphone, it offers many features, such as wireless charging and many more make the Nokia Lumia 920 a step ahead of other Windows 8 phones, providing you with an incredible Windows 8 experience.

Just because the Nokia Lumia 920 is bigger, better, and more powerful, doesn't mean everyone will go for this phone, as some might even prefer an Android or another Windows Phone. The Lumia 920 boasts impressive specs and runs the Windows Phone 8 operating system silky smooth. And even though the Lumia 920 claims to have an impressive camera, you'll probably be a bit disappointed. The Nokia Lumia 920 is slightly larger, but significantly heavier than the previous version of the Nokia Lumia (the Lumia 900).

                      

The Lumia 920 has a "sculpted" body, which means it has a unibody design and the screen is a seamless part of the body. The Nokia Lumia 920 also has an impressive HD screen. Its screen has an impressive 1280 x 768-pixel resolution (WXGA) with an incredible amount of pixel density in other words, 332 pixels per inch. Nokia has improved its screen  technology to build the Lumia 920 with a modified 4.5-inch IPS LCD display. Nokia named it "PureMotion+ HD," because it can do some pretty cool stuff. For example, the sensitivity of the screen can be set to the max, so you can navigate it with your nail or in gloves. Most smartphones will not respond unless its a capacitive object.

Another feature included in the Lumia 920 is wireless charging. The wireless charging, in fact, does NOT have an internal battery, so you'll still have the trouble of wires, you have to plug something into it. The charging pad will only start a charge when you place the phone on the pad. The charging pad also does not have to be one made by Nokia, because anything with a "Qi" standard will work.  
Nokia also sports a high-resolution camera that uses Carl Zeiss optics at 8.7 megapixels, and most importantly, the PureView algorithms. Nokia defines the PureView software as its algorithm  however, the camera aperture is larger than on most smartphones, which gives it better performance in low light. The Lumia 920 takes amazing pictures.

Most of the time, the image quality was nice and fairly consistent -- pictures look crispier and have more contrast on other phones. Colors sometimes were not all the way you see it with your eyes; sometimes the camera has a pink or blue tint on the image. The Lumia's 1 MP front-facing camera does't take stellar shots (unfortunately), but it certainly is good for video-chatting. Videos taken on the Lumia 920 were great, colors were indeed  natural, and records 1080p video. The Nokia Lumia 920 is a great all-around smartphone, but because of its weight and size, this might not be the phone for everyone, though. Most of the features are near-perfect, and none of them are unfinished features to drive you away from buying this phone. 



Review by © 2012 Andy Chin

© 2012 Nokia Corporation

Acer Aspire S7 Review: An Exceptional Ultrabook

When Acer first announced the S7 series, a series of touch-screen laptops, it was the company's first touch-screen ultrabook, and was easily the best-made by Acer. The previous S3 and S5 series were a bit boring design wise, while the S7 is made of aluminum with either a metal or Gorilla Glass lid, depending on which model you choose (11 or 13-inch).

The Aspire S7 has a 1080p IPS display, which looked very nice. With in a choice of an Intel Core i5 or an i7 processor and a RAID 0 SSD configuration, and you can easily achieve the fast performance on the S7 series. Does the $1,400 Acer ultrabook get enough things right to justify the starting price?

Made out of smooth glass, sharp edges, and cool aluminum, you can forget Acer's reputation for putting out laptops made of cheap plastic; the S7 is as nice to the touch as it is to look at, and is easily the best designed and tactile laptop the company has ever made. On both 11 and 13-inch models, the keyboard deck is fashioned out of smooth aluminum, with a large trackpad and keys.
                           
Though it looks like the screen of the S7 has a bezel, it's actually an edge-to-edge full glass display, with a border to match the white lid. The model with the white lid is the 13-inch model, and though its white surface can easily pick up fingerprints, it doesn't scratch.

At 2.86 pounds, the 13-inch version of the Aspire S7 weighs even less than the S5, which was also indeed very light for an ultrabook. The 13-inch model is thinner too-- (0.47-inch vs. 0.59-inch), which is an achievement, given that the S5 was once deemed the world's thinnest ultrabook. The Aspire S7 really does feel a lot slimmer and lighter than other competitive 13-inch ultrabooks.On the bottom of the S7, it is sealed in such a way that you cannot easily remove the cover to access the battery and its RAM. (This is normal for ultrabooks). At the bottom is where you will find the speaker strip, which is somewhat unusual, as most laptop speakers are located in the keyboard area or around the edges/sides.

As for ports, the Acer Aspire S7 offers almost everything that you would expect from a typical ultrabook -- 2 USB 3.0 ports, a 3.5 mm headphone jack and an SD reader. You can also get USB-to-Ethernet and micro-HDMI-to-VGA adapters.


Keyboard and Trackpad-
In any case, whatever considerations Acer had when designing its keyboard has finally paid off -- you could easily start typing at a rather brisk speed with very few typos, and when you happened to make a mistake, the largely sized Backspace key was easy to hit. The trackpad does a fine job at handling native Windows 8 gestures, but still isn't as good at single-finger navigation.

Display-
The S7's 1920x1080 HD IPS display is among the most lovely and aesthetic laptop displays, putting some other laptop's display to shame. You would probably think that 1366x768 is sufficient enough for a 13-inch screen, but once you use the S7, its kind of hard to turn back. Everything on the screen looks nice and crisp. Color reproduction is also very nice, blacks are deep, white are bright and colors aren't overly saturated.

The IPS technology displays incredible viewing angles. Unfortunately, you might encounter screen glare, because the S7 has a very glossy screen. The IPS display is also viewable almost edge-on, with the colors still looking potent on off-angles. The screen of the Aspire S7 can be pushed all the way back, so it is laid out completely flat.

Performance and Battery Life-
The Acer Aspire S7 runs on both Intel Core i5 or i7 processor which is plenty fast. The cooling fan, however, makes an annoying and loud fan noise. Like the S5, the S7 has two SSDs in a RAID 0 configuration, which gives it extreme read/write speeds. Acer claims the 4,680 mAh battery can last up to 6 hours, but in battery tests, it only lasted about 4 hours and 20 min.

Software-
Acer is not the only PC maker to do this, but it has definitely filled the S7 with a ton of bloatware. You'll find bloatware like 7digital, eBay, Skitch and Evernote, Acer Explorer, Encyclopedia Britannica, iCookBook, ChaCha, TuneIn, Amazon.com, Amazon Kindle, Netflix, StumbleUpon, newsXpresso, and a trial of McAfee Internet Security Suite. Wow. 
Like most other ultrabooks, the Acer Aspire S7 comes with a 1-year warranty.

Conclusion-
The Aspire S7, it's the best ultrabook Acer has ever released, with a stunning 1080p IPS display and incredible speed. Only one problem, though: Acer needs to improve the battery life. The S7 has a relatively short battery life compared to other touchscreen ultrabooks. If you don't mind carrying a charger wherever you bring the S7, this is one premium laptop. 


Review by © 2012 Andy Chin & Grant Han

© 2012 Acer Inc.  

Intel Launches 8-Core Itanium 9500

Intel's Itanium processor launches are few and far between. It's new Itanium 9500 certainly is a beast of a processor. The chip is an up-to-date 32 nanometer Poulson architecture that basically doubles the cores to eight cores, increases the interconnecting speed and supports as much as 2TB, that's right, 2TB of RAM for extreme multitasking. With the help of an error-resistant buffer, Intel sees the new Itanium 9500 2.4 times faster than the Tukwila-era design its replacing. The new 8-core Itanium 9500 has a brisk clock speed of 1.73 GHz to 2.53 GHz. The new server processor starts at $1,350 per chip in bulk, and climbs to an eye-watering $4,650 for the fastest chip.


Post by © 2012 Andy Chin

© 2012 Intel Corporation
    

Nexus 4 by LG Review

The Nexus 4 boasts the looks, and the specs. The Nexus 4 is a smooth, elegant device that with a large, 4.7 inch screen, HD display, a 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 processor chip, and plenty more. For a starting price of $299 unlocked, it's sure to attract a whole new demographic that until recently never heard of a Nexus. Is the Nexus 4 worth buying, or is the fourth-generation offering just another target of developers' envy?

Hardware-
Once it's available, Google's newest Android smartphone will be one of the most exquisite devices you can buy. It features the sleek curves of its predecessor along the edges, along with a unibody back cover and very scratch resistant glass. At 4.9 ounches and 0.36 inches, it's a tad bit  lighter and thicker than the LG Optimus G. Both the Optimus G and the Nexus 4 use a 1.5 GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 chip, 2GB RAM, and sport the same 4.7 inch True HD IPS PLUS with 1280 x 768 resolution. Continuing on, there is a 1.3 megapixel camera on the front-facing camera on the top right and sensors on the top left.


On the left side of the Nexus 4 lives a volume rocker, while a secondary headphone and mic jack sit on top of the phone. Onto the right, is the power button, just barely above where your index finger rests. Moving onto the back, is the already mentioned scratch-resistant glass. It is, unfortunately, not a removable cover, so if you want to take out the battery, you're going to have to start unscrewing screws. On the top left, is an 8 megapixel camera and LED flash aligned vertically, with the famous Nexus logo sitting in the middle.

The Nexus 4 is a penta-band HSPA+ device, but this one goes up a step by offering you 42Mbps speeds. It's also quad-band GSM/EDGE, which basically means this phone will work with virtually any GSM/EDGE carrier in the world. The only true missing feature in the Nexus 4 is LTE compatibility.

Display-
The Nexus 4 has a 4.7 inch, 1280 x 768 True HD IPS PLUS display, with a sheet of Gorilla Glass 2 covering the front. Additionally, its WXGA resolution translate into a pixel density of 320 ppi, but its RGB subpixel arrangement means it actually packs more of a punch than the PenTile Super AMOLED HD screen on last year's Nexus.

Camera-
LG made sure to stick to an 8 megapixel camera on the Nexus 4. It's not the best on the market, but remember, megapixels don't tell the whole story. HDR is now natively supported and you can also adjust the white balance, select one of four scene modes and change the resolution and flash settings. Panorama mode makes a return as well. The LED on the Nexus 4 is bright, perhaps maybe even too bright. This shouldn't be too big a problem for most, but with the flash on end up some of the color of the photo was washed away.

The camcorder is capable of taking 1080p movies in MPEG-4 format, and records footage at an average of 22 fps (frames per second) with a 9 Mbps bit rate

Performance/Battery Life-
The phone has a beast of a chipset running things backstage: it's the same 1.5 GHz quad-core Snapdragon processor we saw in the Optimus G, paired with an Adreno 320 GPU and 2GB RAM. You will be satisfied with the Nexus 4's overall zippy performance. It was responsive and fast, smooth multitasking and almost no lag at all.


Conclusion-
The idea that a quad-core smartphone hitting the market with a starting on dollar away from $300 can be stunning to some. And also because it is available without any contracts or carrier locks, which means you can pretty much virtually use it anywhere in the world. This is a smartphone you'd probably expect to be more expensive unlocked, but Google sets a precedent by lowering the cost of the Galaxy Nexus, keeping the Nexus 7 at $200 and is now continuing the trend on the Nexus 4.

Sure, the Nexus 4 is not without its flaws, but none of its predecessors have been perfect, either. And given the boost in real-world performance, the better camera and various other new features, its even more tempting than all those other devices.





Review © 2012 Andy Chin


© 2012 LG Electronics
  

Apple iPad Mini: Review

The iPad Mini has been rumored for as long as since the original iPad was released. Well, the long rumored iPad Mini is this: technically a smaller, updated version of an iPad 2. 

Apple wanted to it to be clear that it was not simply just a shrunken-down version of the iPad 2. The differences include a different case design: the iPad Mini's has a anodized aluminum design and the new Lightning connector. 

The WiFi-only Mini weighs 0.68 pounds, or 308 grams, which is less than half the weight of the fourth-generation iPad. It's also much thinner too, at 7.2 mm, compared to 9.4 mm. On the front is a 7.9 inch, 1024 x 768 IPS LCD.

With the iPad Mini, holding the slate in the same way you would a another tablet, it can be a bit of a reach. You will probably need rather large hands to be able to easily grip the iPad Mini. But overall, the tablet is very comfortable to hold in your hand.

The layout of the buttons is familiar, but different. The volume and orientation lock switches are on the top right side of the device, but here up and down there are buttons. The power button is on top, looking and feeling like very much of the other iPads. There is a small slit for a microphone up there as well, and on the other side, the 3.5 mm headjack. On the left side of the device is nothing. The only other button is on the front, and that's the extemely familar home button. Ironically, the home button is smaller than the home button of the new iPhone 5.

Display-
No, the iPad Mini doesn't have the retina display, but maintaining the same resolution while shrunk down increases pixel density. Naturally, this means the text isn't as sharp as on the new iPads, but it still has a very nice display.

In fact, the brightness and color reproduction was better over the iPad 2, comparable to the latest Retina displays. Colors are  pleasing to the eye and viewing angles do not disappoint. 

Performance/Battery Life-
The iPad Mini runs on a 2-year old dual-core Apple A5 processor with 512 MB of RAM, same as the iPad 2. In battery-run tests, which entails a looping a video with WiFi enabled and a fixed display brightness, the iPad Mini, surprisingly, lasted 12 hours and 43 minutes. 

Cameras-
The iPad 2 never saw HDR nor the Panorama mode found on the iPhone 5, and neither does the Mini. It does, however have a better camera than the iPad 2 at 5 megapixels. Unfortunately, they don't quite pop out as much as the 8 megapixel camera shots of the iPhone 5. It also takes reasonably good video, shooting at 1080p like the most tablets. 

Conclusion-
This is an iPad made for people who cant swallow the $500 starting price tag on the original iPad. This is, in many ways, Apple's smaller version of its best-selling tablet that offers a thin and light design and good battery life. No, the performance does not even match the $199 Nexus 7 and is lacking in resolution. At $329, this tablet has a lot to offer over Apple's more expensive tablets.

 Its cost is a little high for a tablet that doesn't have the latest hardware, but it has an excellent design, and gives access to the best selection of tablet optimized apps. Even though this is a completely usable tablet, you'll find your hard-earned money better spent on competing Android tablets, such as the Nexus 7 which offers a higher resolution IPS HD display and a quad-core 1.3 GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 processor. 


© Review by 2012 Andy Chin, revised by Grant Han

© 2012 Apple, Inc.