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Valentines Day and Chill

Marty
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Valentines Day and Chill

You may have forgotten to pick up that horrible cheap teddy wrapped in plastic, but you can still sit back and chill while nailing Valentines Day.

Spotify and Chill

Walk into the room, tap your phone and have the tones of Barry White do all the hard work for you. Spotify is an absolute essential piece of kit for Valentines and compliments dinner perfectly. You can play some Barry White or maybe go old school with Kissed By a Rose. Personally, that is the game winning track regardless of the situation. I know Batman Forever will be played tonight.

Spotify have even done all the hard work and created a Spotify and Chill section so you can’t pick shite songs and ruin the mood. Alternatively, if you plan to spend the evening in a foursome with Bridget Jones, Ben and his mate Jerry, Spotify offer a Galentines Day playlist to “celebrate the best day of the year with the people who matter most”.

Marvin and Chill

Valentines takeawayAfter you’ve burned dinner or forgot to turn on the switch at he wall, you’ll have to order some nice food instead. Luckily enough, the guys over at Marvin.ie will gladly look after you. Protip – pop on over to this bargain alert thread on Boards.ie to see if anyone has a Marvin.ie coupon to save some money.

What says romance better than frugal living and a battered sausage.

Netflix and Chill

After dinner and some sexy tunes, grab that glass of Lidl’s finest red and launch onto the couch. For one day of the year, you won’t be spending the length of a movie scrolling through seemingly endless lists of movies and there is one one category that matters.

netflix and chill

Yup, the romance section, where you’ll classics such as Days of Thunder and Academy Award Winner Elect, Leonardo DiCaprio’s, Romeo and Juliet.

Pornhub and Chill

pornhub valentinesYou messed it up didn’t you. Ah well, the team over at Pornhub won’t judge you. Just don’t forget to use incognito mode and grab your VR headset – you may as well bring it all into the 21st century.

For the day that’s in it, Pornhub are also offering everyone free premium membership for the day. You won’t need credit card details either, just an email to access glorious High Definition pornography.

Crowdfunded: Zone DPMX – Analytical solution for cyclists

Marty
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0
Crowdfunded: Zone DPMX – Analytical solution for cyclists

The latest Irish crowd sourced campaign, Zone DPMX, is set for success within it’s opening 24 hours on Kickstarter. The wearable device is designed to measure precise rider power (watts) and cadence (rpm) as you ride.

Zone DPMX: Breaking the cycle

Until the Zone DPMX tha majority of riders have found themselves frustrated on several occasions as they find their power meter strapped to a different bike to the one they are using. This wearable device fastens to the rider’s shoes, removing both the treat of forgetting and different calibrations per bicycle. Now, I won’t lie, I’ve used a lot of words and terms here I’m not too up on, but this Irish Kickstarter campaign is powering to success.

Irish you say. Who makes the Zone DPMX?

The Zone DPMX is designed by Dublin based outfit, Brim Brothers DublinBrim Brothers. The company was founded by Barry Redmond in 2008 with the sole focus of creating a more convenient ANT+ compatible cycling analytic tool. While development to date has been encouraged by Enterprise Ireland and Growing Capital, the companies Kickstarter campaign would appear to be the naked flame needed to power this device over the finish line.

Who is Zone DPMX for and how much will it cost?

If you are cycling in the park on a mountain bike during the weekend, you can probably do without this. The Zone DPMX provides cyclists with a solution for focussed training and detailed riding analytics. Brim Brothers claim that measuring power surpasses measuring other metrics such as heart-rate. The Zone DPMX can be used either on the left foot or on both feet for increased accuracy, with the Kickstarter campaign’s Super Early Bird coming in at €390.

The Zone DPMX is for cyclists looking to take their game to the next level and while it may not be for everyone, we love nothing more than seeing an Irish Kickstarter campaign roar to success within hours of being released to the world.

Bill pay offers: Are they the best value?

Marty
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Bill pay offers: Are they the best value?

In the coming months, many will not only choose a new smartphone but will also have to choose between bill pay offers and pre-pay offers. We’ve already seen this question pop up as Three customers are free to leave contracts. To say the very least, this can be a difficult maze to negotiate, so we’ve created a calculator which can hopefully make your decision a little easier. First, a little context.

Bill pay offers

Bill pay offers are provided by Ireland’s mobile service providers; namely Vodafone, Three, Meteor, eir, iD and Tesco Mobile. These companies provide customers with contracts, spreading the cost of minutes, texts, data and a new shiny phone over a period of 12, 18 and 24 months. Every month, throughout the contract period, the customer will pay a set amount of money for the package they’ve picked, but may also pay for usage outside this package (such as roaming). Depending on the phone and bill pay offer in question, the customer may also pay an initial fee to get a phone.

Chances are you’ve seen a few advertisements in store or heard from a sales person that a phone is “free” on certain plans, but is this really the truth? Well, that depends.

Prepay offers

While bill pay is paid monthly (after you’ve used your phone – a.k.a post pay), pre-pay, as the name suggests, requires the customer to already have some money, or credit, on their phone account in order to gain service. Sometimes, this credit will unlock bundles of minutes, texts and data in order to offer greater value. Unlike bill pay, there is not a large discount applied to the price of getting a handset, though there is a small saving for choosing a network. This small saving is essentially the difference between purchasing a locked and unlocked or SIM free handset.

Bill pay offers or pre-pay offers

Choosing between bill pay or pre-pay isn’t always straight forward. While the message “free” on certain plans is tempting, you should consider bill pay to be more like a hire purchase agreement. The contract isn’t to get you a free phone, but instead to offer you the convenience of not paying a large up-front sum of money for a new smartphone. Sometimes, paying that large sum of money in one go and choosing prepay, will save you money in the long run.

Bill pay offers versus pre-pay offers calculator

Our handy calculator will let you help you to compare the cost of bill pay versus pre-pay over a period of time. Simply tell us how much your phone will cost up front on bill pay and prepay, along with your monthly spend details and how long your contract is. We’ll work out which is better value.

We understand that this is only part of the decision-making process and that sometimes the convenience of bill pay will override prepay. Should you ultimately choose bill pay, there is one other great trick you can use to ensure you are getting the best plan for you.

KillBiller: Reduce your mobile bill

KillBiller is a free app which, when installed on your phone, can view your usage details before providing you with a detailed insight into which plan suits your needs most. You might very well be surprised at how little or much you are using your phone and how much you could be saving. The best thing about KillBiller is that your results are just that, yours. As always, if there are any questions that you may have, pop them in the comment section below where we will get back to you.

App of the Week: Metal – Reduce Facebook battery drain

Dean
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App of the Week: Metal – Reduce Facebook battery drain

Facebook, connecting 1.44 Billion people worldwide. 1.24 Billion of those people are active users on a mobile device. An amazing feat for any industry. It’s plain and simple, Facebook is awesome, but it sure does drain your battery.

The problem: Facebook battery drain

Now, if you’re on Android, delete your Facebook app. Yes, you read it right, delete it. Don’t just get rid of it from your homepage or force stop it to save on power. Uninstall it. Immediately! Our beloved Facebook app is draining your battery and slowing down your phone by up to 15%. Not just the cheap plastic models either, I’m talking to you Samsung Galaxy S6, LG G4, Xperia Z5 users too. Chris Cox, Facebook’s chief product officer even made his staff switch from iOS to Android because the app was using so much power and Android can handle it better. Even still, Android still struggles.

One of the most anticipated specs of most flagship phones released every year is battery life and processing power. People want their phones running faster and smoother while also having long battery life and not having to recharge it 3 or 4 times a day. And it turns out all this time the manufacturers have been doing it right, to some extent anyway. Deleting the Facebook App can make your phone last up to 20% longer.

Now don’t get me wrong, if you’re like me and are using your phone for probably 75% of the day, you’re going to see reduced battery life. Cut the manufacturers some slack, the power coming from these phones are on another level to the computers that sent man into space back in the 60’s, so it’s going to drain your battery. But this handy trick can help make your phone last longer.

Facebook app PowerThe reason behind this is app developers are putting so much into their apps. When the Facebook app first came out, it was supposed to be a condensed rendition of the desktop version, but who would have predicted that the vast majority of Facebook users would be using the app over desktop version on a daily basis. Facebook soon realised this and are trying to give its users as much accessibility on the app as possible – and to be fair they did. The Facebook app is easy and efficient to use, even for the older generation who weren’t raised using smart phones, but Facebook is every iPhone and Android users worst enemy.

Instead of being a compact version of the desktop version, it pretty much does everything you can do on the desktop. The result? Shite battery, and slow phones. Your phones aren’t  performing to their full potential because of the Facebook and Messenger apps. I know, I know. It’s a nuisance going onto your internet browser and log in through Facebook this way. It’s not as fluid, nor is the interface as easy to use as the app, but I have the solution to battery drain

The solution

Introducing Metal. Metal is an app that acts as a web wrapper for Facebook. Compared to the Facebook app, it’s not nearly as heavy on your battery, your phone runs faster and you can access Facebook from any app with ease. Simply scroll down from the top of your screen and you can check messages, notifications, friend requests (or suggested friends so ye can still have a good creep) and scroll through your newsfeed. Instead of opening your Facebook app and going back and forth between apps and next thing you know you’ve 10 apps open draining your battery, you’re looking at your newsfeed on top of the app you are already viewing.

Metal alternative to facebook appMetal is fluid and quick an just as easy to use as the Facebook app, if not easier and quicker. If you click into a link or a blog, it’s brings you to full screen just like it would if you opened it on the normal Facebook app. You can also go into the app as itself and scroll through it on the whole screen just like the normal Facebook app. It’s also compatible with Twitter so you can now save memory too as the  two social networks work from the one app. Facebook is about 39MB, Twitter about 30MB, Metal is 3MB. That’s 69MB worth of apps condensed into 3MB, just 5% of the memory with all the functionality.

There are a couple of drawbacks, such as the messenger app being a little lighter with gifs, recordings, or the specialised emojis being limited to the full Facebook app. You have basically two choices, sacrifice your GIFs, or sacrifice your battery and smart phone performance. As Metal improves your battery by 20%, makes your phone 15% quicker and uses 95% less memory, this should be an easy choice. This app pretty much solves most of our issues we have with our expensive smartphones, if you’re not willing to give it a try, then there’s not much more that can be done to save your poor phone’s battery from an early death.

Download Metal now for Android.

Will 2016 bear Oscar success for DiCaprio

Dean
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Will 2016 bear Oscar success for DiCaprio

Men want to be him while women want to be with him. It’s safe to say that Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the biggest movies stars in the world. Actually, scratch that, DiCaprio is one of the world’s biggest stars in general. From his movie roles to charity appearances, DiCaprio is perhaps the most charismatic and recognisable people in the world today and will likely be the actor whose work we recant to our grandchildren as the example that makes all other acting standards look poor. The question everyone is asking today is, “will 2016 bear Oscar success for DiCaprio?”

The short answer is yes.

DiCaprio has been in some great movies over the years, some of which are my favourites; Titanic, Catch Me If You Can and The Great Gatsby, so why hasn’t he been recognised for his brilliance? There’s really no easy answer. I’m not here to tell you about a conspiracy against Leo because I don’t think there is one. He’s just been unlucky. And surprisingly he’s only been nominated 5 times. Four times for best actor in a leading role for The Aviator, Blood Diamond, The Wolf Of Wall Street and most recently, this year, The Revenant, where he once again finds himself as a favourite.

DiCaprio’s career to date

wolf of wall street gifIn 1993, DiCaprio was also nominated for Best Supporting Role in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Some may argue he should have won the Oscar for his outstanding performance in The Wolf Of Wall Street. He played the role with so much passion that in some of the speeches he made you could nearly count the hairs standing up on my arms as I watched. Playing the New York City accent to a tee, he lost out to Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club, who to be fair put up very strong competition.

Another film that he was nominated best actor for was Blood Diamond where he plays a South African in a war torn Sierra Leone in the 1990’s (again a role in which he plays an accent to a tee). Losing out to Forest Whitaker in The Last King Of Scotland, it would be seven years in until he was nominated again in the aforementioned Wolf Of Wall Street. If there is ever an actor you need to do an accent, Leo is your man. So is it time he gets recognised for his brilliance?

This year, we see Leo nominated for Best Actor in The Revenant.

Revenant: DiCaprio’s best role to date?

(Note, spoilers ahoy)

revenant dicaprioHe plays a frontiersman on a fur expedition who is attacked by a bear and left for dead by his colleagues after they realise it’s too difficult to take him with them. He survives the attack and decides to seek revenge on his former friends and hunt them down and kill them. During filming, there was little to no CGI used except for the bear attack. This was a decision taken on by Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who filmed mainly in harsh conditions in Canada for 9 months. The director was taken aback by how well Leo plays the role in such a way that the only real acting he does is the dialogue. In scenes where he is crawling in dirt, hopping into frozen rivers and eating raw bison liver, it was all real.

“I can name 30 or 40 sequences that were some of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do” Leo says about playing the role. He went all out, no holds barred for this film. The original plan was to eat jelly shaped into a buffalo liver, but he says it did not look genuine and opted for the real thing. The only jelly he got was the membrane around the liver he says was the worst part of his meal. This is a prime example that shows us that actors…or at least some actors, don’t have it all that easy.

dicaprio eating buffalo
you don’t get to the top without eating some Buffalo

Some may like their cushy, handy gigs where they would never have to go through these sort of tests of will power, physical challenges and sanity, but if you want to have your legacy cemented in history forever, these are some sacrifices you have to make. And yet, a part of you thinks that Leo isn’t doing this for his legacy. He’s not doing it for an Oscar or fame or money, instead he’s doing it because he knows this is what us mere mortals pay our hard earned money to see, so he feels obliged to deliver it. And he does, time and time and time again. An Oscar would just be a nice perk.

His competition this year consists of Bryan Cranston for his role in ‘Trumbo’, Matt Damon in ‘The Martian’, Michael Fassbender in ‘Steve Jobs’ and Eddie Redmayne in ‘The Danish Girl’. Some tough competition, but none of these actors had to go through the physical torture Leo put himself through for his latest role.

So I don’t think I’m alone in asking the Academy – please just give him the god damn Oscar already!

A is for Alphabet…not Apple

Jon
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A is for Alphabet…not Apple

vwMinIt’s happening! The mighty have fallen. In the same we be brought you news of the impending battle between the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the iPhone 5SE, news has emerged that Apple have fallen behind Google’s Alphabet as the world’s most valuable company.

Google’s parent company pipped Apple to become the world’s most valuable company, ending a four year reign enjoyed by the California smartphone manufacturer. Alphabet’s shares rose 4.7% as consumers and the markets react. Currently, Google’s parent group are valued at $548 billion while Apple trail at a measly $534 billion (poor dears). While the gap between the two giants is currently rather small, Deutsche Bank expect this gap to increase during the coming years.

araIt would appear the sharp rise in share price comes as a direct result of increased transparency of the Alphabet business. Alphabet only came into being in August as an umbrella term for Google, YouTube, Android and other various projects including Project Ara, self-driviyng cars, bio-tech and high speed internet.

Even more interesting is the fact that Alphabet intends to continue heavy investment in future tech development. On Monday, investors were made privy to accounts showing  long term bets versus core business. The main business, such as YouTube and the likes, pushes out an astonishing $66.5 million profit a day (JAYSUS). What’s referred to as “other bets”, or fancy new shiny toys, lost around $3.6 billion, but a dip down the many couches of the Docklands offices will surely turn up most of this money. At least they are investing their money in improvements, rather than becoming Illuminati-esque, living by their mantra of “don’t be evil”.

Since 2012, Apple enjoyed the title of most valuable company largly due to the return of Steve Jobs in 1997 when the company was in near collapse. Apple still remain largely successful, but worrying times are afoot as demand for the iPhone has waned massively, and share prices showing up to a 20% drop. With no big blockbusters on the horizon but the iPhone 5SE, it’s possible Apple could be in trouble.

IFTTT Series: What is IFTTT and how to get started

Marty
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IFTTT Series: What is IFTTT and how to get started

Have you ever found yourself thinking that all that smart technology in your life is a little stupid? Goos3D is on a crusade to make technology relevant in your life and we truly believe that IFTTT is the key to unlock that relevance. All you need is a desire to make things a little easier and a smartphone. Leave your questions in the comments below and let’s get started.

What does IFTTT stand for

IFTTT, which rhymes with gift, stands for “If This Then That”, and  does exactly what is says on the tin. If one thing happens, make something else happen.

What is IFTTT

In this diagram you’ll see that there is a trigger and an action. One way of using IFTTT is to makes things, like a message or tweet, happen on a certain date. In this case, the trigger is the date and the tweet is the action. By using IFTTT you can schedule a tweet to say “Happy St. Patrick’s Day” on March 17th every year. In fact, here is that very recipe.
IFTTT Recipe: St. Patrick's Day Annual Tweet connects date-time to twitter

What I want to happen now is for you to see the possibilities beyond saying Happy Paddy’s Day. Pop in your other half’s birthday or anniversary and set it to send a message with greetings; both romantic and avoiding fights thanks to technology. You could create a recipe on your child’s device that sends you a text message once they reach home. While IFTTT is in it’s infancy, there is a huge range of uses you’ll find for this free app, but you have to take the leap, get curious and give it a go.

Why should I use IFTTT?

We’ve hinted at some uses above, but what’s the benefit? Well as IFTTT say themselves, it’s all about putting the internet to work for you. Impressively, it works on both Android and iOS, with the former having a few extra options, and while most smart phones have some sort of back up functionality, what if you lose your phone and the battery is quickly depleting. Thanks to IFTTT, you can have your phone email you its location when the battery reaches 15%. Here’s the recipe you’ll need for that (currently limited to Android).

IFTTT Recipe: If your phone's battery is low send yourself an email connects android-battery to email

Not a penny to set this up, but it could save you a few shillings should your phone be left in the park or hairdressers.

What are the best IFTTT recipes?

Recipes refers to the gallery of already created scenarios that can trigger actions. There is a seemingly infinite number of combinations and uses for IFTTT, but we’ve picked out our top five useful recipes that you could get started with today – without spending a penny! Recipes you’ve seen so far, and these next five are known as IF recipes. We’ll be looking at DO recipes in a later article.

Mute your phone at work (or anywhere)

There is nothing worse than when you sneak into the office late, seeing there is a big update on or something and then in the franticness of it all, your phone starts to ring and the entire place stares at you. Well, worry no more. To safe yourself and workplace decorum, you can automatically silence your phone based on your location. These are both available on Android and iOS. You can also set your phone to unmute again when you get home.

IFTTT Recipe: Mute your phone when you arrive at work connects android-location to android-device
IFTTT Recipe: Mute phone at work connects ios-location to if-notifications

IFTTT Recipe: Share new links you post on Facebook to Twitter connects facebook to twitter

Do you have a Twitter account you never use? Having more than one social media platform can actually be tough work. You can set IFTTT to be your personal assistant, and push anything you post on Facebook to Twitter as well. This is a great recipe for both the average internet user and social media professionals.

Track your work hours with IFTTT

IFTTT Recipe: Track your work hours in Google Calendar connects ios-location to google-calendar

If you work in an area that requires you to clock in and out, chances are you keep your time fairly well. However, if you do not have one of these systems, you could be working much longer hours than you realise. If you combine IFTTT with Google Calendar, you can see for yourself just how many hours you are working every day. This recipe will log your comings and goings to a certain location into your calendar.

Send a text based on location

This one will help reduce your mammy’s blood pressure on those Sunday evenings. Have you ever driven to college after the weekend only to land in uni and be brought straight out for pints, completely forgetting to tell the mammy you’ve arrived safely even though it was that ham of a young lad driving you the back roads? You know yourself this is not that unlikely a scenario. Fear no more Irish mammy, location based text messages are a god send for situations just like this. Once you and your phone land back into a certain area, you can trigger a text message to a particular person stating you’ve arrived safely.

Do you have automatic gates that are activated by a call or SMS message? You got it, you can have those incredibly slow gates open by the time to get home. This is just as good if you are collecting the missus but she is never ready. Once you exit a certain area, you can automatically send a text message stating you’re on the way to pick her up.

Just don’t make the mistake I made. I set the location to trigger a message to the other half, but was caught sneaking off to the chipper on my lunch.

IFTTT Recipe: Send an 'I'm on my way!' text when you leave work connects android-location to android-sms

Updates on your favourite teams’s game by SMS

Picture this. You’re away in the sticks or abroad with no data connection, but you still want to receive notifications of the important stuff right? You can have IFTTT keep an eye on certain items when your away, falling back to good old SMS updates while you’re away from data connectivity. 

This particular example will use the ESPN sports channel to trigger in game updates to a selected mobile phone number via SMS. Another practical use for a similar situation is to send Twitter mentions to you via SMS, so on and so forth.

IFTTT Recipe: Liverpool SMS Game Updates connects espn to android-sms

We hope to have sold you on IFTTT as this could be the one thing that makes adopting technology relevant. If you have any questions or recipe requests, leave them in the comments below. Be sure to follow us on Twitter and like us on facebook, as we’ll be looking at various connected devices within the home, such as lights, cameras and, well, action actually.

Samsung Galaxy S7: Rumours, revelations and realities

Jon
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Samsung Galaxy S7: Rumours, revelations and realities

In recent years, Samsung have become one of the most sought after premium smartphone manufacturers. The South Korean giants have made such an impact on the market, Apple are bucking trends and releasing a mid-season special in the iPhone 5SE to coincide with the launch of the latest Samsung Galaxy S range. So just what will Apple be competing with? All will be revealed at the upcoming Samsung Unpacked event, as Samsung plan to announce the Samsung Galaxy S7.

Last year Samsung went back to the drawing board and completely reinvigorated the smartphone industry with the S6 and S6 Edge/Edge Plus. This gathering of flagships brought with it a fresh new approach to design, some fancy added features, curved edges in some cases, wireless charging and an affiliation with the Marvel Avengers franchise to boot. Samsung will have to do a lot to replicate the success and sex appeal of the S6, but with that said a lot remains that could be improved. We’ve rounded up all the rumours, rants and ridiculousness to give you a breakdown on what to expect from Samsung’s latest flagship.

Samsung Galaxy S7: Leaked pictures

It was late on Friday evening when the news landed that Samsung are going to host their latest Unpacked event in the Centre de Convencions Internacional de Barcelona on Febraury 21st, a full day ahead this year’s Mobile World Congress event hosted in the same location. Along with this announcement, Samsung has released a small teaser trailer, reviving the hashtag #TheNextGalaxy for the launch.

The ever so closely guarded secret looks of the new handset would also appear to have been leaked galore.

So with the looks out of the way, what’s under the hood?

Samsung Galaxy S7: Specs

You can expect to find a 5.2″ AMOLED display within the Galaxy S7 powered by a 20% bigger battery than the Galaxy S6, jumping from 2550 mAh to 3000 mAh. It appears that the Galaxy Edge, Galaxy Edge Plus and Galaxy Note are likely to be combined into one 5.5″ AMOLED handset powered by a 3600 mAh battery. Galaxy Edge users will rejoice given the poor battery life experienced in the first models. All that screen quality and no power makes Jon a dull boy, or at least gives Jon a dull screen. The expected battery capacities are a clear attempt to drive the iPhone 7 into the ground before it even appears.

Samsung Galaxy S7: Design

There may be a few tweaks and changes to the design of the S7, but nothing too crazy, remembering that last year Samsung pulled a complete 180 with the design of the Galaxy S6 after introducing waterproofing for the Galaxy S5. With that said, there are rumours that the Galaxy S7 will indeed be IP67 certified (totally dust proof and water resistant up to 1 meter).

Yet, while those who’ve had a few pints only to see their smartphone land in the jax, most will be celebrating the return of Micro SD memory. Following widespread criticism at the exclusion of expandable memory in the Galaxy S6, Samsung have listened and will reintroduce the memory slot, expected to allow expansion up to 200GB.

Samsung Galaxy S7: The camera

So with expandable memory back on the table, you can go mad taking photos, but just how good will those shots be? We’d be shocked and appalled if the rumours of a 12MP camera are true and hope the Galaxy S7 comes with no less than a 16MP camera. Should the 12MP option come to fruitition, you can expect the focus (pardon the lazy ass pun) to shift towards low-light performance alá HTC.

Parting ways is the Samsung Galaxy Edge and Edge Plus (quite possibly the Note too), making way for a once size fits all solution in the new 5.5″ AMOLED Edge version

Samsung Galaxy S7: What’s new?

USB Type-C cableYou’d be forgiven for thinking this is all a little underwhelming, but there is more. Samsung do appear to be favouring the inclusion of a USB Type C port over micro USB, meaning no more looking for the mystic third side of the USB port when trying to get a charge as it works either way first time round. The future is here people. Once you’ve dried your phone from it’s fall in the toilet, you’ll be able to charge it much quicker after plugging in on the first attempt (please note, we do not recommend plugging your phone in after it gets wet).

Samsung Galaxy S7: The verdict

Waterproofing, expandable memory and a first time plug in charger might not be enough to win this round of phone launches for Samsung. Consumers want a little more magic, that stuff that the crowd with the half eaten fruit on their device has been doing for years. The vavavoom factor can only be found in the ever building excitement coming up to launch day, the hype. This hype still seems to elude the South Korean phone manufacturers, but will they get it right this time? Find out on February 21st.

Huawei Watch: Hands on Review

Marty
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Huawei Watch: Hands on Review

Ever since it was announced at MWC 2015, the Huawei Watch became one of the most talked about wearables before cooling off and taking months to emerge onto the market. It finally landed and I’ve gotten my hands on one to see if it meets the hype or not.

Huawei Watch: First impressions

Right from the get go, it’s hard not to be impressed with your purchase. The Huawei Watch comes in a sleek display box on par with high end traditional watches. Indeed this is a trend that is present throughout your experience with the Huawei Watch as the manufacturer sought to design a watch more like an actual watch rather than a wearable.

Huawei Watch GIFThe build of the watch screams quality from the stainless steel frame and genuine leather strap to the sapphire crystal, high quality screen. While there were some murmurs within online threads stating the watch as heavy, I personally found it rather light compared to my stainless steel Fossil watch. The most important part of the design is that when you wear the Huawei Watch it just feels like a normal watch and doesn’t intrude with your day until you want the watch.

The only design flaw I could find in the whole experience was the charger. The “hockey puck” charger can sometimes fool you into thinking the Huawei Watch is charging away, only to have you wake up to a 25% battery. This is caused by the charging port not sitting into the watch correctly. Simply make sure you feel the vibration when you connect the charger to the watch and you can avoid this.

You can watch the full unboxing video below.

Huawei Watch: Best features

The best feature of the Huawei Watch is simply its design. While wearing the watch, once someone catches a glace at it, you do need to remind them where your eyes are! People will ask you what it is and how it works as it is a gorgeous piece of kit. With that in mind the watch does offer plenty of other great features and innovations.

OK, Google…

Siri made it cool, but people talking to their phone like a best friend is slowly becoming more popular. The Huawei Watch will await your command upon hearing “OK, Google…”. From here you can say “text my girlfriend” or “what time is the Liverpool game on at” to which you’ll get the answer to your query. It’s just like Michael Knight having a chat with KITT.

Wireless connectivity

This is one of the features that sets the Huawei Watch aside from the rest of the Android Wear market; it comes with built in WiFi. Should you make your way to work but leave your phone at home, you will still receive notifications to your watch once your phone maintains a WiFi connection and your watch is connected to WiFi in work. You can even respond to text messages, WhatsApp messages or emails and the like through the reply function coupled with Google Now voice recognition.

Heart rate monitor

Over the Christmas break, there was plenty of craic knocked out of the heart rate monitor, as the watch was passed between friends drinking Red Bulls and pints to see who had the best heart rate. Whether or not you would actually wear the Huawei Watch to the gym or out jogging is questionable, but nonetheless the feature is there.

Android and iOS: Take your pick

This is rare, but also not the first time Huawei have pulled it off. Just like the Huawei Talkband, the Huawei Watch is compatible with both Android and iOS. Granted, iOS will be slightly more limited for the time being, it’s an impressive feat nonetheless.

Watch faces to bate the band

Huawei Watch watchfacesWhile there is a haype of watch faces loaded onto the Huawei Watch as stock, you can download even more from the Google Play Store. The range is astonishing, varying from analogue to digital watch faces and traditional to ultra modern. In fact, some of the biggest traditional watch makers, such as Rolex, have been cracking down on knock off watch faces mimicking their finest work.

If all these don’t cut if for you, the option to get hands on remains. You can create your own using Watch Maker, which comes in both free and premium versions.

Huawei Watch: The worst features

Charging

As mentioned above, there is really only one irritating thing and that’s the minor inconvenience that comes with making sure the watch is sitting correctly on the charger. Other than that the minor annoyances or water hitting the screen and the phone thinking it’s a touch slowly go away as you adapt to having a responsive device on your wrist.

Price

While this is perhaps the most complete and best looking smart watch on the market, many consider the price to simply be too high. Within context, the price of the Huawei Watch at €380, isn’t all that bad. The Moto 360 2 weights in a shade cheaper while this is the same price you would be looking to spend on Apple Watches. While I was more than happy to fork out the cash for the Huawei Watch, the price tag at which this piece of jewellery comes as an acquired taste.

Performance

The battery in the Huawei Watch is pretty decent considering it’s default set to “Always On”. Most smart watches, such as the Moto 360 and Fossil’s latest addition have that silly looking flat tyre on the bottom which turn the screen on and off. Doing away with these, meant the Huawei Watch screen is always on, but does go to sleep, waiting to be spun awake.

With that in mind, the Huawei Watch gives an awkward amount of power. I’m quite a heavy user and would get a day and a half from the watch, meaning I really get a day and just charge every night regardless. It’s likely a lighter user would get two days from a single charge.

Connectivity is another strong point. I often have the watch, WiFi and Bluetooth headphones all connected at once (here’s to my health) and the device never drops connection. My previous wearable of choice was the Pebble Kickstarter Edition which regularly dropped connected despite consistent firmware updates.

Huawei Watch: The verdict

While the price will deter all but the tech saavy early adopters, the Huawei Watch is a fantastic piece of kit. Unlike the Apple Watch, Android Wear does not really have the loyal brand following to drive sales. What Huawei have created might be one of the pricier wearables on the market, but they have also bridged the gap between wearable and fashion accessories. The Huawei Watch is likely to be the nicest and most functional smart watch on the market for quite some time to come, which might just justify that price tag.

Huawei Watch IrelandWhere to buy the Huawei Watch in Ireland

We picked up this watch from Amazon.co.uk. If you’re the impatient type, try out Amazon Prime’s 30 day trial and  get free delivery to the Ireland via Parcel Motel.We ordered on a Saturday, with the Huawei Watch arriving into Parcel Motel on the Monday night. Insanely fast!

Apple iPhone 5SE: Innovation or desperation?

Dean
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Apple iPhone 5SE: Innovation or desperation?

In the past couple of weeks, rumours have emerged surrounding the possible release of the Apple iPhone 5SE. Apple sources have stated that the iPhone 5SE, apparently code named ‘N69’ internally, suggest that the phone will be an upgraded version of the iPhone 5, rather than a budget version like the iPhone 5c.  These reports have surfaced a couple of weeks after it was rumoured that Apple will be releasing an iPhone 6c, but these reports have been deemed false by internal sources. So why are Apple going back to the smaller screens rather then going with a 6c and a bigger screen? It’s simple; market share.

In recent years, popularity in bigger screens have grown, with all manufacturers. Let’s look at arguably Apples biggest competitor, Samsung. The Samsung S series began its life with the Samsung S with a 4″ display, versus Apples iPhone 1 with a 3.5″ display. The S II immediately upgraded its screen size with a 4.3″ screen and gradually getting larger and larger with each new model, with 4.8″, 4.99″ and 5.1 for the S5 and S6. Apple kept the 3.5″ screen for 4 years before upgrading to 4″ with the iPhone 5. The main reason behind this was Steve Jobs. He believed that people didn’t want big phones, instead opting for small, powerful compact models. It wasn’t long after his death that Tim Cook, Jobs’ successor, realised that people did want bigger screens, and with the iPhone 5, Apple increased their screen size to 5″. 2 years , later upgrading again to 4.7″ with the 6 and 6s. Still 0.3″ smaller then the S5 and S6 but making up for it with incredible screen resolution and a slick curved screen.

The difference between Apple and Samsung is that Apple have seen themselves as a premium brand since day one. They have no interest in bringing out budget phone like the Samsung Pocket Neo or the very successful Samsung Core Prime. However, just this week, reports have been released that  sales of the Apple iPhone are in decline. Maybe the iPhone 5SE is their answer. Forecasters within the company could have spotted this 6 months ago and saw that something urgent needed to be done. It is unclear what the price is going to be, but by looking at the rumoured specs, it’s still going to be a premium price. With that in mind, it won’t be as steep as the iPhone 6s and the upcoming iPhone 7.

iPhone 5SE like 5Apple are looking at their competitors and seeing that not everyone wants big screens even though most flagship phones these days have approximately 5″ screens. With the iPhone 5SE, Apple are scaling it back to 4″ again, similar to the iPhone 5, iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c. This new model will be more appealing to customers who like Apple devices but don’t like the largely screens. From my experience within the mobile phone industry, I can say that this will be appealing to the older generation of customers who got their iPhone 5s on a two year contracts and want to upgrade to a new iPhone. The larger, modern screens might be too much of a change for this generation, leaving the door wide open for the iPhone 5SE to be a success. Going back to Apple possibly forecasting this, it is rumoured to be released in March or April, which is strange for Apple as they usually release their new models in September/October. Between the reports of sales loss and the release date, it’s hard to believe that Apple aren’t trying to salvage their sales before they lose their competitiveness with Samsung.

Anyway, enough about the business side of the iPhone 5SE, let’s talk about what we can expect from it.

iPhone 5SE screen size

The 4″ screen. More appealing to customers. Also it will be curved. Not in the sense of Samsung’s S6 Edge, but more closely similar to the curve screen we see on the iPhone 6s.

iPhone 5SE camera 

They are supposedly scaling back the camera features to 8MP main camera and 1.2MP frontfacing camera, which we can see on the iPhone 6. It will also support Panoramic pictures, auto focus and video recording. No major surprises there, but it gets better as it also supports Live Photos, which we saw in the latest iPhone 6s model.

iPhone 5SE connectivity and brain

Expect the iPhone 5SE to have NFC, making it compatible with Apple Pay. The iPhone 5s was not able to use Apple Pay without an Apple Watch, so this is a nice upgrade for the users of iPhone 5s.

iPHone a5 chipiPhone 5SE users will also get a built in Barometer which they can use in the Health App, again an upgrade from the iPhone 5s. The main feature the 5SE will not see from previous models is the 3D touch we saw in the 6s. But when you put it all together, this seems like an incredible phone so we’ll take the loss off the 3D touch.

In terms of the brain power within the iPhone 5SE, it was initially rumoured that it would come with an A8 and M8 chip, which we saw in the iPhone 6, but recent updates on the rumours have reported it will have an A9 and M9 chip, as seen in the iPhone 6s. This is an incredible amount of power coming from a relatively small phone in comparison to other phones in the market that support this kind of power – the Galaxy S6, LG G4′ and HTC One M9.

iPhone 5SE colours

You can expect to find the iPhone 5SE in all the colours available in the 6s range, gold, silver, space grey and rose gold.

If Apple did see this loss in sales coming and this is their strategy turn this around, I have to say, bravo Apple. They have managed to put some very powerful technology into this small compact device. The A9/M9 chips tells us that alone, but to be able to put technology from the iPhone 6s into it is an achievement in itself. The only other phone on the market that I think could compete with the iPhone 5SE, besides flagship phones with 5″ + screens, is the Sony Xperia Z5 compact. It is no secret that Apple’s market share in the phone industry is greater than Sony’s, so it’s possible it could very much compete with it.

I think Apple know exactly what they are doing. I think they will come out of this potential crisis before it even gains legs. And I think this will set up even more anticipation for the new iPhone 7 expected to be released in October. And I also think other companies, including Samsung, should be worried, because Apple could come out of this stronger than ever.

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