While we here at Gadgets are guilty of having stacks and stacks of PC games in our closets collecting dust, we don’t even come in the same league as PlayStation collecting’s community member Ahans76. He has every single NTSC PS2 game ever made, in mint condition and still sealed in its original box. His collection of 1800 PS2 games is probably the only one in the world today, and all the games in his PS2 collection are all first run and limited editions, meaning no second editions or re-releases. Coming up with the monetary value of his whole collection is difficult, but it’s probably safe to say it’s in the thousands of dollars.
LG’s Optimus Black is a fantastic Android phone that has it all: good looks, solid feature set and a price that’s not going to burn holes in your bank account. It’s a mid-end phone that looks, feels and performs like a flagship smartphone. It’s not perfect though, and only a not-so small detail keeps me from recommending it to everyone. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
The Optimus Black has a very clean exterior design and shuns physical buttons like the plague. Aside from the requisite power button that rests on the top of the device and the volume rocker and G key (more on this later) on the left side, every input key is of the touch sensitive variety.
The charging/USB slot sits on top (which you can close when not in use), along with the 3.5mm jack. One of the main features of the Optimus Black that LG has been touting is the NOVA display that’s on it – a 700 nit, 4-inch IPS deal that has a resolution of 480×800 pixels. If you don’t speak fluent geek, IPS stands for in-plane switching technology; a kind of LCD tech that allows for better colors overall and greatly reduces color distortion and contrast loss when viewed at an angle. The high nit rating also means that the Optimus Black is still readable even under direct sunlight, something AMOLED screens and the like usually can’t do.
The Optimus Black is a dainty little thing, clocking in at 122x64x9.2mm. The back of the device has angled surfaces on both sides, with a single speaker near the bottom of the device. The overall weight of the Optimus Black is about 109g, which to be honest is a bit too light for me. While the Optimus Black has excellent construction all around with nary a creak to be found, the mostly plastic construction plus its light weight makes it feel a bit cheaper than it actually is. Of course, your mileage may vary, and I know there are a lot of people that see this as a plus.
That’s not the only hardware trick it has on its sleeves – the Optimus Black also carries a 1 GHz Cortex-A8 processor and PowerVR SGX530 GPU, which means it has enough horses under the hood to handle moderately intense number crunching and graphics work. Imaging is done by way of a 5 MP, 2592 x 1944 resolution camera with LED flash. There’s also a secondary camera located on the front of the device.
On paper, the Optimus Black looks like the ideal smartphone for power users. Well, not exactly. Unlike recently released smartphones, the Optimus Black uses Android 2.2 Froyo as its OS, not the newer 2.3 Gingerbread version. This might have been forgivable omission four months ago, but not in the current market where even entry level devices sport Gingerbread from the get-go. There might still be hope though, as LG might push an OTA (over the air) update for it, though there’s no word of that happening as of yet.
To its credit, the Android build that ships with the Optimus Black is extremely stable, and I didn’t experience any major software crash while using it. And while the processor included in the Optimus Black isn’t a dual-core affair like its bigger sibling the Optimus 2X, it was still able to keep up with all the apps I installed in the device.
The G key stands for Gesture key, and in theory it allows you to utilize the accelerometer on the device to switch screens and quickly access the camera by tilting the phone and shaking it twice, respectively. While the switch functionality worked well, the camera wouldn’t turn on no matter how much I shook the device.
As usual, I installed Android benchmark tool AnTuTu to be able to gauge the number crunching abilities of the Optimus Black. Unsurprisingly, AnTuTu gave back a figure of 2576, which according to AnTuTu, was a score slightly below the HTC Desire HD and above the Nexus One.
Battery life is pretty good, and unlike some of the phones I reviewed before, the Optimus Black was able to survive more than a day away from the socket. Calls also came in loud and clear, with no distortion whatsoever.
So is the LG-P970 Optimus Black worth a purchase? Despite the limitations brought on by its slightly dated OS, the Optimus Black still brings a lot of features to the table. It’s certainly worthy of the Php 19,900 price tag attached to it.
What’s Hot:
NOVA display is bright and readable even under the sun
Easy to use and operate
Light and thin
What’s Not:
Runs on Android 2.2
Bottomline:
While somewhat hobbled by an older version of Android, the LG-P970 Optimus Black is still worth a look if you’re in the market for a mid-end smartphone.
In a report that should surprise absolutely no one, China is apparently throttling Google+ so bad that it’s unusable to locals. Ren Media reports (and we’ve confirmed through our own tests) that China’s infamous Great Firewall has slammed the brakes on Google’s newest social networking site before it even gains traction. For the uninformed, China frowns upon Western social networking sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, and makes them unavailable to users without the use of software to go around their firewall. Seems like the big red is continuing that tradition, and while one can argue that they’re not outright blocking it (the tests via just-ping shows that Google+ can still be accessed) the mere fact that the site runs so slow is tantamount to it.
The way that we acquire our news today has changed vastly over a short period of time. Everything is instant, as we now have a multitude of methods to receive immediate updates. In fact, we are all now able to receive reports as they actually happen.
Now that obtaining instant updates is yesterday’s news, what comes into play now is the manner and format in which we acquire our information. This is where PressReader rises on a pedestal: by providing its users full digital replicas of print newspapers, retaining the traditional feel of leafing through paper pages that many of us have grown accustomed to, and actually prefer.
This author was able to test PressReader on both an Android smartphone and an iPad, but this review will only focus on the latter.
Installation
Installing the app is hassle free – users may visit PressReader’s official webpage and choose their operating system or they may also opt to acquire it directly through iTunes or the Android Market.
Once installed, browsing through the PressReader store reveals the numerous subscriptions available from various countries. At the time this article was written, the available subscriptions listed under the Philippines are: The Philippine Daily Inquirer, The Manila Times, The International Herald Tribune, Sun Star Cebu and Uno Magazine. Simply select the edition you wish to subscribe to, and the app will ask if you would like to automatically receive new updates.
Once subscribed, acquiring your daily digital “newspaper” is as easy as opening the app and watching a progress bar appear, indicating that the current edition is downloading. Depending on your internet speed, this shouldn’t take any longer than brewing a cup of fresh coffee.
Features
Now, while conclusions are usually reserved until the end of an article, this reviewer cannot contain himself.
PressReader is brilliant, convenient and utterly addicting. It is perhaps the best method of consuming news in a digital format, especially for those who prefer the layout of traditional newspapers.
One of the obvious advantages would be the ability to zoom in to specific articles and magnify text and photos, which will appeal to those who struggle with the minuscule font size on print newspapers. With the PressReader app installed on your iPad, those with inhibited eyesight can finally put their magnifying glass away.
Another great feature is the ability to select the specific page you wish to view, which is done by way of a scroll bar/browser. Once a page is selected, simply touching on an article’s title (which PressReader conveniently highlights), will automatically zoom in to fit it to the iPad’s screen.
Double-tapping on an article will open a pop-up window, allowing a further magnified view in a format similar to an RSS feed. This window also reveals an additional option to “listen” to the news via an automated vocal recording. This reviewer found it rather impressive, regardless of the fact that slight mispronunciations of local places and names would sometimes occur, which is quite understandable. Nevertheless, it’s quite remarkable and offers the ability to multi-task while still “reading” the news, which is perfect for those who don’t seem to have enough time in a day.
PressReader should also find a following among travelers, as users can get themselves up to date on the political and social climate of the country they are about to arrive in. Additionally, the app further allows its users to keep up with their local newspapers back home as well. So whether you are a frequent flyer or a tourist embarking on an adventure, PressReader is an extremely valuable app to have.
Conclusion
Having been able to use PressReader these last few months has been absolutely amazing. It provides all the essential features, offers numerous subscriptions, and is refreshingly easy to use. It is perfect for old souls who prefer the feel of paper crumple and wrinkle between their fingertips, as this app provides a great transition into the digital realm of obtaining news.
In short, PressReader is not just an amazing app – it might quite possibly be the news app to get.
Earlier this week we posted the rumor that Facebook and Skype would be teaming up to provide its users video chat capabilities.
That rumor proved to be true. In fact, the service is available to try right now.
Users simply have to undergo a one-time setup that is quick and easy. After the setup is completed, you simply click on the video chat icon on your friend’s profile or in the chat window.
So, if you’re tired of expressing yourself with emoticons and indiscernible lingo, perhaps you need to give Facebook’s video chat a try.
Fame. Success. Popularity. All of these may bring worlds upon worlds of joy and happiness. But the humanity in us knows that these same things don’t mean much unless you can use them for that “good cause” or “greater good”. That’s why many noteworthy celebrities and leaders in the worlds of fashion, film, television, music and sport take their status, influence and “star-powers” in the endeavor to raise funds for charitable projects worldwide, thus helping better the lives of their fellowmen.
Now, no effort is too small when it comes to seeing the bigger picture to alleviate poverty, conserve the environment, and protect the rights of children (to name a few causes). That’s why these celebrities along with Whatever It Takes have specially designed iPad and iPhone cases that aim to raise funds in order to achieve these goals. So far, these celebrity-designed cases have raised over 4 million dollars.
Tough shields for the iPhone include designs from the bands Greenday and Coldplay, award-winning actresses Penelope Cruz and Charlize Theron, singers Katy Perry and Eminem, and designers Donna Karan and Giorgio Armani. Premium leather cases for the iPad include designs from Donna Karan, Giorgio Armani, and Vivienne Westwood.
If there’s one thing people will always need, it’s storage. Aside from providing people reliable and cost effective storage options for your devices, SanDisk is giving its customers something extra via their back to school promo. Here’s how it works: if you purchase a SanDisk flash drive (4GB, 8GB, 16GB or 32GB) from May 23 to July 23 in a participating dealer store, you get to pick a prize from the SanDisk bowl. The prizes up for grabs are foldable fans, caps, sports bottles and tote bags. The contest is only applicable for genuine SanDisk USBs with warranty stickers. So what are waiting for? Grab a SanDisk flash drive now.
Here’s the list of the participating dealers:
SM NORTH
Dynamic PC
ThinkPC
Villman
Gigahertz
Asianic
Silicon Valley
Accent Micro
PC Live
Electroworld
Complink
SM Megamall
PCworx
Villman
Asianic
Gigahertz
Silicon Valley
Accent Micro
PC Live
Electroworld
Complink
PC Express
Gilmore
ThinkPC
Pcworx 2nd flr
Pcworx 3rd flr
PC Hub
PC Hub – EDGE
Gaisano Interpace ( inside IT Center)
Gaisano Interpace (outside IT center, beside PCX)
PC Options
PC Quarters
PC Corner IT Center
Dynamic PC
Foxcom
Vivocom (Machine and Computerworld)
PC Express
VMALL
Gigahertz
Digital Hub
Acenet Vmall
Abacus
Dynamic PC
PC Express
If you haven’t gotten an invite to the hottest social network in the web, now is the time to grab one. Engineering Director of Google+, Dave Besbris recently posted that they’re allowing invites again, but with a caveat – they’ll still be throttle invites, so that their system can slowly adapt to the incoming crowd of people without crashing everything. So if you guys want in, ask the people you know that’s already on for an invite. While you’re waiting for your invite, check out our first impressions of Google+.
Crazy, hi-tech phones are usually the norm in this technology page, but though we wish we had all the new, shiny smartphones that come out every other week, real world constraints always conspire against us. Some people just need a phone to call or text and probably listen to a track or two. That’s exactly what Olive Mobile promises to deliver, bringing phones that just have the basic features without raping your wallet. The Atom V-G70 is probably one of the cheapest WiFi phones you can buy today, retailing at around 4,190. For that price, you get a touchscreen display, a 3MP camera, WiFi connectivity and dual-sim capability.
Another device that was on display was the V-W1, Olive’s Android powered offering. While we couldn’t get a solid SRP yet, an Olive rep estimated that the price of the unit would probably be around 8-9k once it gets released here. All the standard Android features are there, and the device is powered by Android 2.1 – ancient by the standards of today’s feature phones, but it’ll do for basic use.
It’s a fact of life – some people have perfect 20/20 vision even if they work in front of a PC all day, and some people’s eyes just plain suck. Unfortunately, there are some whose eyesight has degenerated so bad that even the thickest of glasses can’t help them. As usual, science is coming to the rescue by way of bionic glasses that combine several technologies from different fields to help people who have just a small area of vision left, have cloudy or blurry vision, or can’t process detailed images. Dr Stephen Hicks of the Department of Clinical Neurology at Oxford University says that “We want to be able to enhance vision in those who’ve lost it or who have little left or almost none. The types of poor vision we are talking about are where you might be able to see your own hand moving in front of you, but you can’t define the fingers.” The glasses have video cameras embedded in the frame, while a see-through lens that projects a display of tiny lights to the wearer give extra information about the places surrounding him/her. Stephen believes these hi-tech glasses can be realised for similar costs as smartphones – around £500.
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul yet despite countless efforts to peer deep into those very windows, it seems many people still have difficulty figuring out just what kind of soul resides within. Or (to not wax poetic), just how exactly a person is feeling.
Electrical engineer and Professor Rosalind Picard founder and director of the Affective Computing research group at the MIT Media Lab (Affectiva), in their study of emotion technology, developed prototype glasses with a tiny in-built camera linked to computer software that identifies different emotional facial states: thinking, agreeing, concentrating, interested, confused, disagreeing via tiny green, yellow, or red lights that determine a particular emotion.
Emotional measurement sets out to help people from many different areas be it in the field of marketing, sales, advertising or for the clinical research of a variety of disorders like autism, addiction, anxiety, or ADHD.
With this technology, we may not only know how a person is feeling, but we can also determine how we can respond to them accordingly.
Back in COMPUTEX Asus announced a game changing product – the Asus X101, their $200 netbook. One of the main reasons why the X101 was priced so cheaply was because of the OS being used – it utilizes MeeGo, an open source operating system that is also used on the recently unveiled Nokia N9. Today we’re getting an opportunity to sit down with the Asus X101H and experience the desktop version of MeeGo for the first time.
The device we got to handle for this particular sit down was the X101H, a thicker version of the X101. The X101H has a 250GB HDD as opposed to a 16GB SSD that’s on the X101, a VGA port that’s also missing on the X101 and a chunkier 22mm profile as opposed to the X101’s anorexic 17.6mm. Aside from those small differences the X101H is identical to the X101.
But the real star of the show is MeeGo. When you first start up the device, you’re greeted with MeeGo’s home screen. There are several panes, or “zones” in MeeGo, , like status(social networks), internet (browser), people (IM), media (music and video), applications and devices. Seems that the creators of MeeGo made a conscious decision to make social networks the center of attention here, as you’re able to see your Facebook and Twitter streams right away, without having to go to a seperate web page.
Video playback was good, but don’t expect the device to handle full HD video well, because that’s not the point of this device.
Users can download apps for the platform via an app store. Naturally there wasn’t much content on there during our sit-down with the device, but users can expect a gamut of apps both paid and free in the next few months.
The overall look and feel of MeeGo is a bit light hearted and cartoony. The icons are a throwback to retro designs, so it may not appeal to everyone. Attaching USB devices may also be a bit difficult – since MeeGo is based on Linux not every device will work. Simple devices like mice, USB sticks and external HDDs will work without problems, but more complicated devices like internet dongles and the like won’t.
MeeGo seems to rely heavily on cloud computing, and a lot of its features depend on an active internet connection. Asus tells me that their target demographic are people who just need a device that can surf the net and access their social networks – which is basically the target audience of netbooks – at a lower price point. They were still pretty tight lipped on pricing and availability, but they assure me that they’ll have one in 2-3 weeks time.
We’ll have a full review of the X101H when we get our hands on a review unit.
We’ve finally managed to grab some hands on time with the HTC ChaCha, and we’re pretty impressed at what we’ve seen. We initially had fears that the dedicated Facebook button was a just a gimmick, like a shortcut to the app or something, and we were wrong. Dead wrong. The FB button is central to the entire ChaCha experience, and will definitely make sharing content and keeping up with your friends easier.
Darren Sng, Senior Director, Asia Product Marketing gave us a few figures that pushed them to create the ChaCha. There’s currently 700 million FB users in the world, 300 million of which access their account through a mobile device. People who access their FB account through their mobile phones are twice as active, and half of FB users between ages of 15-24 access their accounts before they get out of bed.
The phone itself is a QWERTY deal, with a dedicated FB button located near the bottom. The FB button is integral to the experience, and throbs slowly when you’re in a place where you can share stuff to your FB account. Depending on the context on the screen, the FB button does a couple of things. On the main menu, pressing the FB button allows you to go directly to a screen that allows you to post directly onto your wall. A long press allows you to use the Facebook check-in at your current location. You can cut down the steps to posting pictures to your account directly from the camera – you just need to press the FB button before taking the picture and the picture goes directly to your wall. You can even share what you’re currently listening to – pressing the FB button while listening to music on the ChaCha will pull track information from the internet and posts what you’re currently listening to.
We’ve only managed to get a glimpse of the extent of the integration of Facebook in the ChaCha, but from what we’ve seen, it’s pretty substantial. So the only question here is, where do you get the data to power the experience? Well, HTC is partnering with Smart to deliver the Facebook experience to consumers – Luis Ang Jr., Senior Marketing Manager for Broadband Internet and Data Services for Smart was present during the briefing, and he tells us that Smart is coming up with Php 1500 unlimited data plan for the ChaCha. Users can also select the Php 1000 data plan for the ChaCha, though users will have to settle with a 100MB data cap. The ChaCha will be free for both plans. If you want to buy it via retail, you can expect to shell out Php 15,500. We’ll get a more proper review once we get our demo units.
In a surprising turn, Canon has announced that they are now exploring the concept of releasing a mirrorless system.
Yesterday, Masaya Maeda, head of Canon’s camera division, announced the prospect of a new compact model set to retain the functions and quality of a high-end DSLR. Canon is supposedly “considering the technical aspects”, and will launch “an interesting product next year”. There is no confirmed specifics on whether it will be a mirrorless model, or an extremely compact DSLR, but the company has apparently filed a patent for the former.
This is surprising news because last March, Rainer Fuehres, head of consumer imaging in Europe, mentioned that Canon had no need to create a mirrorless camera due to their successful DSLR sales. He also added that if ever Canon were to join the fray, they would try to introduce a revolutionary mirrorless sytem as opposed to simply adding another product to an already saturated market.
On a personal note, perhaps loyal Canon users would greatly appreciate a mirrorless sytem as well as an SLR-inspired design such as a digital version of the classic Canon AE-1 Program (pictured above), similar to the mod created by Diego Monge?
I guess we will all simply have to wait for a year to see what Canon’s “interesting product” will be.
Google Insights for Search shows that the Philippines is the top country in terms of ‘gadgets’ searches from 2004 to present.
According to Google Insights for Search, many working professionals have more than one gadget aside from their desktop to manage their busy lifestyle. This unique interest in technology is likely what makes the country stand out from the world in terms of Web interest for the key word “gadgets.” These gadgets allow people to become productive in all aspects of their lives, from work to home, hence the importance and emergence of cloud computing. This allows information to be accessible anywhere, anytime, and with whatever device. And the primary way to do that effectively is to have a web browser capable of handling rich media.
Google Chrome, Google’s web browser, was fundamentally designed for the cloud computing experience. No matter what and how many gadgets you’re using, Google Chrome can ensure that you always have access to your content. Here are some ways in which you can boost your productivity, even while on the go, on Google Chrome:
Sync bookmarks across computers.
Send links, phone numbers, maps to your phone.
Print easily using your phone or any computer.
Store your passwords safely with Chrome.
Take notes and access on the web and phone.
Store website references and read them later.
Make a website feel like part of your computer with application shortcuts.
Google Insights for Search