Samsung Galaxy Ace review

The latest edition to the Galaxy family is the Samsung Galaxy Ace GT- S5830, which packs quite a punch considering its middle-of-the-road specification and £199.99 prepay/£25 contract price point.

The Android 2.2 (Froyo) operating system helps this smartphone stand tall next to other mid-range touchscreen devices, such as HTC's Wildfire, which comes with a noticeably slower processor and older version of Android, 2.1 (Eclair).

The Samsung Galaxy Ace is the little brother to the powerful Samsung Galaxy S in many ways.

Aesthetically, you'll be forced to play spot the difference if you put it up against the iPhone 4, and will come to the conclusion that the Samsung is generally smaller, lighter and nicer in the hand than the iPhone.

However, in terms of sex appeal, the iPhone 4 wins hands down for its sleek look and feel, since the Samsung Galaxy Ace is a bit too plasticky. Interestingly, although the Galaxy Ace is smaller, the screen size is exactly the same as the iPhone 4, at 3.5 inches.

The screen quality is a low-end TFT, and is poor compared to the Super AMOLED screen on the Samsung Galaxy S, which allows for crystal clear video playback.

There's no HD video recording, but the five-megapixel camera works well as a happy snapper – it has several shot and scene modes, which can be fun to play around with.

Nokia C5-03 review

Upon first touch, the Nokia C5-03 is sleek but not stunning, chunky but light enough, and rocks minimalistic buttons, touchscreen capability and a shiny derriere.

But if you were picking up this smartphone in the hope that it might provide some real competition in the mid-range budget area, you may be in for a little disappointment. The Samsung Monte offers a better range of pre-loaded apps. The HTC Wildfire has a better UI and LED flash for the camera, and the mid-range Blackberry Curve 3G has email pretty much covered.

So what exactly is the Nokia C5-03 offering other than an extra '-03' on top of last year's Nokia C5?

Measuring in at just under 14mm, the handset is a little bigger than Nokia users might expect, but handily compact for everyone else.

Its rounded edges fit nicely in the hands, especially small ones, and while the depth might be an issue for some, we felt it gave the light handset (93g, thank you!) a little solidity and stopped the plastic-cased phone from feeling too cheap.

That said, it didn't prevent a hairy moment when removing the battery cover for the first time – the thin piece feels imminently snappable, which makes for a scary experience if you're, shall we say, as ham-fisted as we are.

The contrasting coloured end is a nice aesthetic addition, but is ultimately useless, though it allows for users to do a little outfit matching, if that's your thing. The loudspeakers are located there, though, which are perfectly loud and emit a nice, clear sound.

On the shiny back sits the five-megapixel camera, which is an improvement over its predecessor. There's no front-facing camera, so video calling is out.

All sockets, ports and buttons are present and correct. There's a charger socket, mini-USB socket (also for charging if necessary), 3.5mm audio jack, volume rockers, keypad lock button and place to put that lovely From Me To You Bear wrist strap you've been hoarding since the 90s.

There's also a microSD memory card port for up to an extra 16GB of storage to hold your morning commute podcasts, which are easily grabbable from both your computer hard drive and the Ovi podcast store. But should you get bored of those, a built-in accelerometer enables gameplay of modern classics such as Doodle Jump. Hours of fun right there. 


INQ Cloud Touch review - Facebook phone

Last year, we saw the INQ Chat 3G and INQ Mini 3G, promising Facebook integration on a budget - but sadly, thanks to quite poor processing, neither really stepped up to the task.

Fast forward to 2011, and the company has come back with the INQ Cloud Touch an Android-powered smartphone that keeps the budget tag, and shoves not only Facebook, but Spotify too deeper into the phone than anything on the market - and TechRadar has nabbed the first model to bring you our exclusive UK INQ Cloud Touch review.

Our colleagues at T3.com grabbed some INQ Cloud Touch video footage which you can watch below.

The 'budget' tag is one that many phone brands have struggled with in the past, as it's too easy to skimp on features or design in order to bring the handsets in at the correct price point. The Orange San Francisco is the only success we've really seen, with a high-res screen and slick OS all for £90.



The INQ Cloud Touch costs £199.95 on PAYG or just £18 on contract, so while it's not in the same category price wise, it's still very much cheaper than the £500+ price mark of the likes of the iPhone 4 and Samsung Galaxy S2.


The INQ Cloud Touch is a cute little handset, there's no doubt about that. Covered in a rounded plastic chassis that comes in red and white, the phone feels a little light in the hand, but nothing too bad. The design ethos is clearly cheerful and chirpy, and the smooth edges and large front icons certainly help facilitate that.


The front of the phone houses three touch-sensitive buttons (Menu, Home and Back), although there's no front-facing camera to speak of. But it's on the sides that INQ has decided to place its innovative keys, and we're big fans.

On the top left-hand side, a flush key sits with a small 'i' icon on - this is the info key that delivers pertinent information when pressed from any point in the phone. It's a nice touch, and easy to use no matter how you're holding the phone; plus it has a smooth pressing action.

The top of the INQ Cloud Touch has the microUSB slot (uncovered), 3.5mm headphone jack and power/lock key. We always like to see a cap for our charger slot (after the horrific breakfast jam tragedy of 2009) and the power button is a little hard to hit as it's part of the curved chassis. It's not terrible, but it does feel a little small.

The volume rocker switch is on the top right-hand side of the phone, and is easy to operate, although as it's flush it can be hard to hit in the pocket. Below it lives the media key, which is another nifty bit of innovation.

Pressing it will open up the Spotify player, giving you easy access to your music or the full Spotify experience (depending on whether you're a Premium user or not). The INQ Cloud Touch is the first phone to bring an offline Spotify experience (ie you don't need to pay £9.99 a month to use the app), and it's good to see access is hardwired to the phone.

The rear of the Cloud Touch looks similarly cutesy - the camera sensor has a plastic ring around it to look oversized, next to a speaker grille with the same dimensions to offer an experience that looks ever so slightly like a face. Weird, but kind of cool if you like Hello Kitty merchandise.

Overall, the INQ Cloud Touch feels nice in the hand - it sits well and the 3.5-inch screen, with WVGA resolution, looks clear and is easy to reach. It doesn't pack a weighty, premium feel, but it does have a lot of style and will appeal to many looking for a cheaper phone.

HTC Desire S review

Oh, we liked the HTC Desire. It still sits at the top of our 20 best mobile phones list, proudly casting a belittling eye over HTC's own Desire HD, the Samsung Galaxy S, Google Nexus S and even Apple's iPhone 4 juggernaut.

Though the HTC Desire's technology is now being surpassed, it's aged beautifully thanks to some timely price drops. However, all things must come to an end (or at least be supplanted by something new). The HTC Desire S has arrived to take over from its predecessor in the Android race.

In many ways, it's quite similar. We'll still be looking at a 3.7-inch 480 x 800 screen, Android overlaid with HTC's Sense UI and a 1GHz processor. However, HTC hasn't totally rested on its laurels.

Our colleagues at T3.com grabbed some HTC Desire S video footage which you can watch below.

The RAM is increased for the upgraded Android 2.3, there's now 1GB of built-in memory and it's made with a premium aluminium unibody shell.


The only real disappointment from a spec point of view is that 1GHz processor – it's single-core, while its competitors slowly move to dual-core for the higher-end phones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S2.

While it lacks the processing grunt of the LG Optimus 2X, we commented in our review of that phone that the Android experience wasn't actually made any faster or smoother than the original Desire by the addition of Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2, so it'll be interesting to see if it can be as slick as ever on one core.


The Desire S also brings improvements in video recording, with 720p HD capture now supported, though the sensor stays at five megapixels.

The wireless technology has also had a welcome boost, with 14.4Mbps HSDPA 3G broadband and Wi-Fi 802.11n support both added.

The battery is also slightly larger (up to 1450mAh, which is still smaller than a lot of the competition), though HTC is claiming as much as a 20 per cent increase in standby and talk time.


It's available SIM-free for a little over £400, but looks set to be free on contract from around £35.
We're told the retail version will ship with a microSD card, but the size will vary between retailers – 4GB looks set to be the average.

LG Thrill 4G: Out Soon

Announced: 21 Mar 2011
Market Status: Not yet released
Release date: unknown

LG Thrill 4G, is the first US version of the LG Optimus 3D. It features a glasses-free 4.3" parallax barrier LCD display with 480x800 pixels, blazing fast 1GHz dual-core TI OMAP4 chipset, and two 5MP cameras on the back that allow for stereoscopic stills and video capture. The frame rate is 30fps for 1080p Full HD in 2D mode, and 24fps for the 720p HD 3D video capture.

HTC HD7S: Out Soon

Announced: 21 Mar 2011
Market Status: Not yet released
Release date: unknown

HTC HD7S is a re-branded version of the HTC HD7. The phone is equipped with a 4.3-inch WVGA Super LCD display which is the largest in the WP7 lineup, but even more intriguing is the fact that the phone will ship with an updated version of Microsoft's platform supporting copy and paste. On the hardware side you get a 1GHz single-core processor, while in the camera department you have a 5-megapixel snapper.

Firefox 4 on Android will make iPhone users jealous

Mozilla’s latest mobile browser, Firefox 4, officially launches today after months of testing.

The browser brings features like Firefox Sync — which synchronizes tabs, personal data, and settings from Firefox 4 on any other platform — and a new interface that does away with distracting menus and icons. And of course, it’s also blazing fast.

Firefox 4 for Android shows just how innovative apps can be with an open mobile OS like Android. Apple’s iPhone OS doesn’t allow for any third-party browsers to use rendering engines of their own, which means that it would be impossible for Mozilla to release the browser on the iPhone as it is. Undoubtedly, Firefox 4 is one of the few Android apps that will inspire envy among iPhone users.

Mozilla does offer an iPhone app, Firefox Home, which includes the Firefox sync feature. But it relies on Apple’s WebKit browser rendering engine, which means that in practice it isn’t that much different from the iPhone’s native Safari browser.

One aspect of the mobile Firefox 4 that I really appreciate is its ingenious user interface that lets webpages fill the entire screen. To access open tabs, you simply swipe right on your device’s screen. To access settings, swipe left. The address bar is at the top of the screen, natch, but it also disappears as you scroll down a page. On mobile devices, where screen real estate is precious, I appreciated Mozilla’s concerted effort to make as much of the screen available as possible.

Mozilla claims that Firefox 4 is up to three times faster than Android’s built-in browser. After testing the browser on a Samsung Galaxy Tab, the speed difference was noticeable. Mozilla even managed to include extensions support in the browser, which the desktop version of Firefox popularized.

Firefox 4 also brings support for advanced HTML5, which will allow Web publishers to implement features like location-aware browsing (using your device’s GPS), device orientation (which would allow sites to show you different content based on how you’re holding your device), and even build games completely out of HTML.

The browser doesn’t include support for Adobe Flash at the moment — which is the biggest knock against it, since Flash support is one of Android’s big selling points. Mozilla says it’s looking to add Flash in the future, it just wasn’t fast enough to include in time for Firefox 4’s launch.

For some reason, Mozilla is also releasing Firefox 4 on Nokia’s Maemo platform today, an operating system that’s only available on Nokia’s N900 smartphone.

RIM announces 7-inch BlackBerry PlayBook tablet

Research in Motion founder and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis hit the stage at RIM’s BlackBerry Developers Conference in San Francisco today, where he unveiled the company’s long-awaited tablet — the BlackBerry Playbook.

He described the device as a “BlackBerry amplified” experience. The PlayBook has a 7-inch display, runs a WebKit browser (the same browser framework used on the iPhone and Android’s browser, not to mention RIM’s BlackBerry 6), and it supports HTML5 and Adobe Flash. Under the hood, it sports a dual-core 1Ghz processor and 1GB of RAM. The Playbook has front (3-megapixel) and rear (5MP) cameras, both of which support high-definition video. It can play back 1080p HD video with hardware acceleration, and it also has an HDMI port to output content to your television. The HDMI output also has the ability to display different content than the PlayBook’s screen, making it ideal for presentations.

As we suspected, the device is running an entirely new operating system from QNX Software (pronounced “kinnix”). QNX founder Dan Dodge said that the software will “enable things that you have never seen before.” Over 230 models of cars are using QNX software, Dodge said, and it’s also used in networking and power grid devices. “We’ve taken the experience from all these industries, and we’ve taken the past year to build this BlackBerry OS,” he continued.

The PlayBook offers an “amplified” view of what’s already on your BlackBerry — thanks to a clever function which gives the tablet access to files on your BlackBerry via Bluetooth tethering. The PlayBook also doesn’t have 3G access of its own, but since it can pair up with your BlackBerry phone for mobile internet, you don’t have to pay for another data contract.

RIM CTO of Software David Yach emphasized that voice is still the “killer app” for mobile phones — but that didn’t stop RIM from creating “Super Apps”, which he describes as apps that are so seamlessly integrated that you won’t know you’re multitasking. “An app tells you the temperature. A Super App integrates with your calendar to tell you to bring an umbrella to Seattle,” he said. The demonstration mainly focused on Super Apps on BlackBerry phones, but it definitely seems like something we’ll see in tablet apps as well.

RIM didn’t offer any exact pricing or release date information for the PlayBook — other than it expects to release the tablet in early 2011.

Given the little we’ve seen, the BlackBerry PlayBook seems like a worthy tablet entry for RIM. It’s inextricably linked to BlackBerry phones, much like Palm’s defunct Foleo project, but it’s done so in a way that actually seems useful to BlackBerry users.

http://mobilephonesupdates.blogspot.com/2011/04/rim-announces-7-inch-blackberry.html

BlackBerry Touch Monaco Tutorial Videos Discovered

More video footage for the BlackBerry faithful today, as a few video tutorials of the BlackBerry Touch Monaco have hit the net waves and of course we have said video tutorials for our reader’s viewing pleasure below.

The BlackBerry Touch Monaco tutorial videos come our way courtesy of the guys over at Ubergizmo and by way of the Crackberry guys, and just like the BlackBerry Touch Dakota tutorial videos we posted yesterday, these videos offer much the same footage.

There are five short videos in all covering the BlackBerry Monaco SIM insertion, making a call, the home screen, basic functions and the BlackBerry Monaco hardware, all lasting just roughly three minutes in total.

Apparently the word is that BlackBerry maker research In Motion has requested the videos be removed, which could mean that RIM is gearing up to release the BlackBerry Monaco at some point in the not too distant future.

So are any of our readers considering picking up the BlackBerry Monaco once RIM get round to delivering the device to the masses?

BlackBerry Messenger Social Platform Public Beta Released

For BlackBerry developers Research In Motion has now made their BlackBerry Messenger Social Platform an official public beta enabling BlackBerry developers to take advantage of the popular BlackBerry Messenger service.

With the release of the BlackBerry Messenger Social Platform beta BlackBerry developers can now access and update fields such as status, personal messages and avatar in the user’s profile, gain access to API’s and features enabling the building of important functions into apps, create custom areas in the user’s profile, embed and initiate chats with friends, make file transfers and more.

BlackBerry developers will also be able to test the exact workflow and BBM integration that they can expect to see on a live device, which is accomplished via special simulators for BlackBerry OS 5.0 and BlackBerry OS 6.

Furthermore, full support for the BlackBerry WebWorks platform is planned to be added in April allowing developers to take advantage of the features found in the BlackBerry Messenger Social platform.

For those wishing to download the BlackBerry Messenger SDK you can do so by hitting up the BBM Social Platform page, while a guide and further info for the social platform can be found by going here.

BlackBerry Curve 3G 9330 Unofficial OS 6.0.0.524 Available

There always seems to be quite a few OS leaks when it comes to the BlackBerry smartphone platform, and we haven’t covered one in a while so we though we’d bring the latest unofficial BlackBerry OS 6 leak to your attention today.

According to the guys over at Crackberry, by way of Bbh-plus, the latest release is OS 6.0.0.524 and is for the BlackBerry Curve 3G 9330, and there isn’t anything known about what the new OS may contain feature wise so far.

Obviously OS 6.0.0.524 for the BlackBerry Curve 3G 9330 is unofficial so if Curve 3G 9330 owners download and install they do so at their own risk, but if you do then feel free to share what OS 6.0.0.524 delivers in our comments area below.

Our usual disclaimer, as this OS is not an official BlackBerry OS release from research In Motion or BlackBerry carrier the risk associated with downloading and installing is down to the user, and it may be in your best interest to wait for an official version release.

iPhone 5 may be announced this June after all, or not

June and Apple's WWDC is coming, but still there are no rumors on the iPhone 5. Yesterday two independent reports indicated the iPhone 5 will be launched at the end of June and the opposite thing - it will not launch until September.
According to the South Korean news outlet ETNews.co.kr Apple will announce the iPhone 5 during the upcoming WWDC and will release it as usual by the end June simultaneously in many countries including South Korea (SK and TK).

The Loop, on the other hand, claims it has its sources who are still keen that there will be no iPhone 5 announcement at the WWDC. They insist it will be released in September instead.

Previous rumors have it that the iPhone 5 will have a dual core A5 chipset, an 8 megapixel camera, bigger internal storage (and screen eventually), NFC support and even a metal casing. We guess we'll only know for sure this June.

Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II dual-core CPU will run at 1.2 GHz

The Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II is a pretty powerful beast as it is with its Exynos chipset featuring a dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU and Mali 400 GPU. However Samsung obviously decided 1GHz is not good enough for their flagship so they are adding even more oomph to it.

The company's Estonian office has just confirmed through their Facebook page that the two CPU cores will be running at 1.2 GHz, rather than the previously announced 1GHz. That update brings the Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II to the top of the Cortex-A9 class, in pure computing power, at least.

It's a surprising move, we admit. We've never seen processor specs jump midway from announcement to release but that's obviously the case, The Galaxy S II official microsite no longer lists the exact technical specs of the CPU, so we can only assume something's cooking there for real.

Update: We just got a further confirmation from an internal source that the Galaxy S II CPU has indeed been updated to 1.2GHz.

What we don't know yet is how this new chip compares to the new Qualcomm Snapdragons, featuring 1.4 GHz dual-core Scorpion CPUs. We guess we'll see about that in a couple of months time when the Galaxy S II and the HTC EVO 3D will both be finalized.

It should be pretty obvious by now that 2011 is going to be as good a year for Android fans as 2010.

Nokia to Release 40 New Devices In 2011

Nokia N8
It would appear that Nokia shouldn’t be counted as out for the count when it comes to the mobile space, as the word is Nokia is aiming to launch a bundle of devices this year in a bid to regain their dominance of the smartphone arena.

According to an article over on Tech2 and by way of Hindustan Times, Nokia is looking to launch 40 new devices this year with 12 of those devices being smartphones. Apparently a Nokia exec close to the development has said… “We will be launching 40 models in 2011 of which at least 30% would be smartphones.”

Nokia has recently seen hard competition from the likes of BlackBerry and the iPhone, and a recent report by IDC claims that Nokia market share in India has fallen, although Nokia disagrees.

According to the Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report, IDC claims that Android is the most favourable with the masses, which is followed by BlackBerry, Apple’s iOS, then Symbian and Windows Phone 7, although again Nokia disagrees with the figures.

Personally it doesn’t surprise me that Android is tops and Symbian is way behind, but with the ever changing landscape of the smartphone arena what OS is tops today can quickly change, although I would say Nokia has a way to go to get anywhere near that top slot.