Panasonic to launch rugged 5-inch smartie next month?
Panasonic is rumoured to be making mobiles again, with a 5-inch rugged smartie planned for next month.
ZTE Blade Q Mini is a £60 Jelly Bean bargain on Virgin
This Android 4.2 dual-core effort is just £60 from Argos, locked to Virgin as a pay as you go phone. How does it measure up to the Moto G?
Tim Cook dodges iPhone 6 questions, promises 'great things'
Apple’s Tim Cook shrugged off questions about a bigger, badder iPhone while launching the phone on the world’s largest network.
Sorry Samsung, first Tizen phone cancelled by network
The first Tizen phone has been cancelled as a Japanese phone network admits there’s no room alongside Android and the iPhone.
EE's 4G success sees owners hold out for more money
EE’s joint owners Orange and Deutsche Telekom have shelved plans to float the network on the stock exchange.
Review: Apple Mac Pro
Introduction and SpecificationIt’s finally here. We’ve been waiting for Apple’s new high-end Mac since the summer of 2012, when a user emailed Tim Cook about the apparent neglect of the Mac Pro range and was promised “something really great for later next year”. A year and a half on it finally arrived, but was Apple’s late 2013 Mac Pro worth the wait?Apple’s Mac Pro range is designed for power users. If your needs aren’t extreme enough to justify buying a Mac Pro – or your pocket isn’t deep enough to afford one – you could go for an iMac.Apple Mac mini review21-inch iMac review27-inch iMac review11-inch MacBook Air review13-inch MacBook Air review13-inch MacBook Pro review15-inch MacBook Pro reviewMacBook Pro 13-inch with Retina display reviewMacBook Pro 15-inch with Retina display reviewThe iMac range is significantly cheaper than the Mac Pro, and has the advantage of having a built-in screen and coming bundled with a keyboard and mouse, all of which you have to supply yourself if you buy a Mac Pro. If you’d rather not take the Apple path, there are plenty of high-end Windows PCs to choose from. Overclockers Gold Rush Gamer Pro gives a great gaming performance, and has a 250GB solid state drive. The Aria Gladiator Diablo GTX is great value for money but runs a little noisily, and the PC Specialist Vanquish Eclipse 670 MKII features a built-in Blu-ray drive, unlike the Mac Pro, which has no optical drive at all. At first glance, the most striking thing about the new Mac Pro is the radical redesign of its casing. It’s just 9.9 inches tall and just over 6.5 inches in diameter. By volume, it’s an eighth the size of the previous-generation […]
Review: Asus Memo Pad HD 7
IntroductionBy partnering with Google and introducing the world to the original Nexus 7, Asus became a de-facto leader in the small form factor tablet market. At that time, Samsung and Amazon were the only other major players, but backed by Google’s marketing and some incredible pricing, Asus had a game changer on their hands. In an attempt to dine out on that success, Asus has launched a number of follow-up tablets, clearly utilising its experience with the Nexus 7. The latest of these offerings is the Memo Pad HD 7. Unlike the company’s previous Memo Pad offering at this size, the HD 7 comes packed with a bevy of excitingly high-end sounding specifications and backs those up with a range of bright, glossy colours, all for a retail price of just £129 ($149, around AU$170).Comparisons with the original Nexus 7 are inevitable here. The HD 7 is very similar in size, being just a smidge wider and thicker, but gains back the advantage by forcing you to carry a little less heft at just 302g, compared to the 340g of the Nexus 7.This reduction in weight is despite that minor increase in overall size, with dimensions of 196.8 x 120.6 x 10.8mm.The similarities don’t end there, as the HD 7 offers a 7-inch screen at the same 1280 x 800 resolution as the original Nexus 7, and also arrives with a quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM.Despite having similar specifications on paper, the processor is significantly different to the Tegra 3 in the original Nexus 7. It is a MediaTek MTK8125 which is very similar to the MTK6589 that can be found in many Chinese market phones, but it doesn’t contain cellular radios. Indeed, there […]
CyanogenMod Installer app now on Apple Macs
CyanogenMod has crossed the rubicon to Apple Mac computers with an installer app for OS X.
Review: HP ZBook 14 review
IntroductionWhen it comes to professional laptops, HP isn’t playing games. The company isn’t interested in fancy features or alternative designs—its simply out to make a product that delivers. Inside and out, that philosophy is clear in the HP ZBook 14, which the vendor claims is “the world’s first workstation ultrabook.”Weighing just 3.57 pounds and measuring 0.83 inches thin, the ZBook 14 is quite the mobile machine. The notebook was a breeze to carry around in my shoulder bag for the past week or so, and wasn’t a pain to pull out either. The fact that HP ensured that its workstation ultrabook was a looker certainly helped.The ZBook 14 comes in a gray brushed aluminum finish on its lid surrounded by black soft touch plastic accents and a classy chrome HP logo front and center. Smooth magnesium coats the laptop keyboard deck in an almost gunmetal hue, surrounding a chiclet-style, backlit and spill-resistant keyboard with matte plastic keys replete with drain to offset liquid damage.To please the veteran business users, HP included a gray rubber pointing stick between the G, H and B keys with two dedicated buttons just below the spacebar. Most users will be served just fine by the snappy, smooth touchpad with firm physical buttons.Above the keyboard is a 14-inch, 1920 x 1080 LED screen that users can upgrade with 10 point multi-touch capability. Look even further up, and you’ll find a 720p webcam—both of which are surrounded by a black, matte plastic bezel wrapped by a thick band of rubber.Unfortunately, HP didn’t keep a consistent aesthetic: The underside is made of a black magnesium and the soft touch plastic is off putting. The ZBook 14 no Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga or 15-inch MacBook […]
Hands-on review: Pentax K-500
IntroductionThe rise of the compact system camera has made it a tough time in recent years for the entry-level DSLR, which may explain why Pentax hasn’t rushed to replace its ageing K-r junior model. But, better late than never, the K-500 steps in to fill the vacant bread-and-butter end of the company’s DSLR range.In essence the K-500 is the same camera as the new mid-range K-50 that Pentax recently introduced to replace the K-30. The key differences between the new siblings are that the K-500 has to do without weather sealing, and its autofocus system lacks any AF point display in the viewfinder.But given Pentax’s history of producing well made beginner DSLRs with good specs, can the K-500 prove a worthy alternative to the Canon 100D, Nikon D3200 and Sony A58?FeaturesFirst impressions aren’t encouraging, however, suggesting Pentax is already playing catch-up with its established rivals. At the heart of the K-500 is the same 16.3-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor found in the old K-30. This kind of pixel count sounds a bit paltry by today’s standards, especially compared with Nikon’s 24MP chip in the D3200.The sensor does, however, come equipped with Pentax’s Shake Reduction system, enabling it to shift enough to allow shutter speeds up to three stops slower while retaining sharp shots. Having such a system in the camera body rather than the lens carries the added bonus that you can attach almost any K-mount compatible lens and still maintain a stabilised image.When Shake Reduction isn’t enough and there’s no alternative but to crank up the sensor sensitivity, the K-500’s PRIME M processing engine should be up to the job. It’s another element borrowed from the K-30, but Pentax has given it a few tweaks […]