Mobile phones – they’ve undergone a strange design path since their inception. From massive blocks of limited ability, through increasingly smaller and smaller frames and then one day, suddenly, they started getting bigger. Arguably starting with the introduction of the first generation 3.5″ iPhone, smart phones have steadily taken over the limelight, driving the screen sizes sky high, questioning the very definition of usability. Enter the HTC Sensation XL, packing a 4.7″ screen on its face. So then, just how big is too big?

Hardware/that screen

Any discussion on the hardware of the XL is likely to be dominated by that screen, which is understandable. But let’s put that aside for just a moment, and talk about the rest of the XL. Well, it’s big. Measuring 132.5 x 70.7 x 9.9 mm mean’s its relatively slim frame feels even slimmer in comparison to its gigantic proportions. Meanwhile, the front of the phone is largely bare, on the white model we were given the front visage is little more than a black expanse, some capacitive Android buttons, a front facing camera (1.3mp, if you must know), a light sensor and the customary silver speaker earpiece. Along the left, a micro-USB charging port whilst the right hand side claims home to a reasonably stiff volume rocker. The top features not only a 3.5mm headphone jack but also a secondary microphone for noise cancellation, you lucky thing. Rounding things off is a slightly protruding 8MP sensor, dual LED flash and speaker on the back.

The entire phone is wrapped in a mixture of white plastic and aluminium which detaches in much the same way as the original, smaller, Sensation. The back plate is closer to a shell than a cover, giving great build quality whilst giving the end user a chance to get at that precious battery. We’re fond of it over here, and well, it works well, despite us being able to find a few tiny creaks on our review model.

Let’s talk about that screen. First things first, it’s huge. So huge you’re going to have to consider just how big your hands actually are. I, with my average-ish hands (okay, they’re a tiny bit small, what of it?) struggled to use the phone comfortably in day to day use, and that’s a problem. Don’t get me wrong, I loved having all that extra screen real estate when browsing the internet, playing games and watching movies but when I wasn’t doing those things, when I was just sending a text or answering a call, it became a burdon to handle.  Which is a shame, because the panel itself is pretty great. Continuing the fine HTC tradition of Super-LCD screens, the XL packs one of its own and it’s several shades of gorgeous with lovely, vivid colours and decent black levels. Sadly, it’s resolution isn’t so much to shout about with a 480 x 800 resolution, equaling to a less than glorious 199ppi, a number which is already old hat, and due to be further overshadowed the the forthcoming wave of hi-res screens. One clear plus though is just how closely the LCD is mounted to the front of the phone, it lends the phone an impressive, high end feel.

Performance/call quality/software/battery

If we had to describe the performance of the XL in one word (believe me, we don’t), it would be capable. That is to say, extremely capable. In day to day operation that tag team of a 1.5 GHz Scorpion and Adreno 205 GPU comes together to power the big screened beast with nary a hint of lag. I loaded up some of my favourite mobile games (Reckless Racing, Zombie Dash) and the XL never once stuttered under the weight of them, true also that while handling every day mobile tasks we noticed just how zippy the phone is. For example, loading this very website with no cache took a darn right impressive 8 seconds (including flash elements) , we could find very little that held back the XL from doing its thing. Quadrant scores came in around the 2100 mark while GPU benchmarking tool brought in a score of 48.7pfs, these should always be taken as a secondary point, at this stage in the mobile game benchmark scores aren’t always a reliable indicator of prowess.

Call quality on the XL was reasonably impressive, those at the other end found us clear and crisp for the most part while we found the earpiece on our end simply average, producing decent sound in a reasonably tinny way. Needless to say though, you’re not going to be struggling to hear people, it just could be better.

Hello, HTC. Once again the Taiwanese giants have loaded their hardware with Sense, their custom mobile skin atop of Android 2.3.5 “Gingerbread”, this is Sense 3.5, bringing all the visual whizz bang of 3D style effects and spinning homescreens that you’ve been crying out for in your life. The continuing problem with Sense is that it just doesn’t make sense anymore, back when Android 1.0 was released, Sense was a beautiful attempt at making Android less ugly, and it worked rather well. As time drove on, and Android versions jumped up quicker than we could count, the entire operating system got prettier and prettier, leading up to the frankly beautiful Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich”. In the 2012 mobile landscape, all HTC appear to be doing is putting a pig on lipstick. Sense is not a fashion disaster, it’s just an unnecessary resource hog atop of an already beautiful bit of software.

The larger problem comes with that screen resolution, it’s the same as the HTC Radar and Desire S, both of which clock in at a full inch smaller than the XL. Other than HTC’s special efforts at fitting more information on the screen (the settings panel works very well in this regard) all we’re getting here is a bigger version of what you can see on those other phones with more big icons than you can shake an oversized phone at. Until the XL is updated to ICS, we’re doomed to this kind of super-sized UI treatment, unlike the Galaxy Note which brings more information alongside it’s larger screen.

The XL comes loaded with a surprisingly small 1600mAh, which is even more surprising given just how long the XL lasts on a charge. Now, I wouldn’t go a whole weekend without giving it some juice, but your day to day life shouldn’t be interrupted by too many low battery notifications

Camera

HTC used to be very bad at cameras, then they stopped being very bad. The 8MP camera on the XL should, by all rights, work every bit as well as it’s contemporaries – it doesn’t. We had real trouble getting the sensor to focus properly in almost any lighting situation, large amounts of noise creeped in at almost every level and shots were generally unimpressive across the board. 720p video fared slightly better, but did suffer from large amounts of rolling shutter. Generally, the less said about the camera here, the better.

A small rant on Beats Audio

 The XL is Beats branded, one of the first phones from the joint partnership between Monster Cable and HTC to bring the overwhelmingly popular headphone brand into the mobile realm in a big way. This branding stretches to a animation in the boot up and a red B on the back of the phone, other than that we get a special EQ setting and a set of Beats branded headphones. Firstly, I don’t like Monster Cable. At all. They’re unethical, overpriced and overhyped. Their consumer range of Beats ‘phones aren’t worth the materials they’re crafted from, with awful mids, loose bass and muddled highs, they are enjoyed primarily by consumers who’ve never had the chance to experience good quality headphones. True, the jump from standard iPod headphones or very low end headphones is huge, but to anybody who’s had the pleasure of sampling good quality headphones they’re an abomonation, especially for their hugely over inflated price.

The headphones that come included with the XL, designed to match with white plastic and aluminum, are marketed at one of the main selling points of the XL. “Why buy Beats headphones when you can get some free with your new phone?”, the marketing men ask as they rub their filthy mitts together. Now, obviously, the free headphones we’re getting with our new phones won’t be up to the quality of the normal range, so how do they sound? In a word? Horrible. They are every bit as bad as standard iPod headphones, only with better sound isolation. If you like music, at all, disregard these headphones and move on with your life.

Wrap up

Ignoring the Beats, the XL is a fairly capable mobile. With it’s speed, nice quality screen and good build quality it adds up to a pretty decent package (aside from that abysmal camera), you’ve only to ask yourself. Just how much screen can I actually handle? I fear the XL might be a little too much for most mere mortals to handle. We fear there are better options in the large screen market than the XL, the Samsung Galaxy S2 will serve you much better with a nicer screen, faster processor and thinner frame if you can suffer the plastic build and ugly, ugly skin.

Rating: 6 out of 5 stars (6/10)

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

Google just recently released their figures and there are more than 90 million people throughout the world that are using Google+. With so many people using an increasingly popular social network, can we afford not to follow? As with anything, it is crucial to make the most out of the time we invest. That is why we present these Google+ tips and tricks to make your time on Google+ more efficient.

Disable resharing

It is easy for you to determine who sees what type of information in Google+. However, your connections on Google+ can still share information across your networks because they have no default limitations. If you want something to remain between the people you shared it with, click the arrow in the top right hand corner of the post. From there, select Disable resharing and you will not have to worry about your posts spreading like wildfire.

Check your Incoming feed once in a while

Google+ is different from Facebook in that it allows people to share things with you even when you are not actively following them. Check your Incoming feed occasionally to see if there is something in there that may be interesting. Consider it a spam folder that actually has some intriguing information on occasion.

Hide members of your circles from others

· Go to your Google+ profile
· Click “Edit your profile”
· Click the icon next to the “In YOURNAMEHERE circles” section. It is on the left
· Now people do not know who is in your circles

Your circle options

The Google+ circles system is particularly useful when it comes to deciding what sort of things you want to share with the various groups of people you know. However, if you are not dealing with privacy-sensitive information, it is easier to simply share with all your circles instead of having to click every single circle individually

Account switching is easy

Did you know it is easy to switch accounts through the Google+ bar? In order to do so you have to enable multi sign-in first. After that, it becomes easy to switch between a work account and a personal account. Select your name on the Google+ bar and select ‘Switch Account’ from the menu.

Know who is in on the conversation

Sometimes it can be necessary to know if information that was sent to you was public information or just sent to a number of people. If you look at the top of the post, you will see a ‘Limited’ icon as long as it was not public. If you click the icon, you can see everyone included in that particular post (and who will be able to see your comments)

Some useable shortcuts

· Hit ‘K’ button to go up one post
· Hit ‘J’ button to go down one post
· Press ‘Tab’, and then ‘Enter’ to submit a comment
· Hit on ‘Enter’ to start a single comment
· Hit the ‘Q’ button to move the page up or down
· Press ‘Shift + Space bar’ to scroll up the news stream
· Hit the ‘Space bar’ to scroll down the news stream

Set Your Notifications

Especially if you start using Google+ heavily, it is necessary to have the right settings. If you do not, there is a decent chance that your inbox will be flooded. You can change the notification through Google+ settings and check and uncheck notifications that you would not want to receive in your inbox.

It is easy to find your Facebook friends

If you have used social media before there is a chance you already have quite a few friends on Facebook. If you are using Google Chrome, use the Facebook Friend Exporter plugin to import Facebook friends to Google+. This is certainly faster than having to add every person manually.

Google plus is here to Stay

As mentioned before Google plus has grown to 90 million users since its debut and still growing. It goes without saying that Google plus is a major player within the social networking circle and it may very well provide strong competition for both Facebook and Twitter. Sign up and start using Google + it’s easy, fun and interesting. Also, make sure to have high internet speeds for downloading and uploading of messages and various contents. You can use an Att uverse coupon code
to save on your internet service. Good luck on your Google plus adventure.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

Mobile website design will take centre stage in 2012 as momentum continues to shift from the traditional Web to the mobile Web. As mobile phone users increasingly migrate to the Apple iPhone and to Android-powered smartphones, the popularity of the mobile Web will continue to soar. Add the number of mobile tablet users to the mix and understanding the importance of mobile websites is easy.

Perhaps one of the most significant challenges facing web developers is the need to present usable web content in formats that adapt to a multitude of different mobile screen sizes and resolutions. After solving the rendering problem, designers must then focus on creating mobile layouts that present content in a way that is easy to navigate without omitting essential features.

The following design tips will help everyone who has a website get their mobile websites deployed and performing their best for the coming year.

1. Design for Fingertip Navigation.

Clickable elements should be large enough for users to tap without unintentionally activating a different element. Designers with enough discipline will avoid the temptation to overload mobile Web pages with too many buttons and controls as if they will be used with a mouse. Menus, search boxes and images should be large enough and separated enough for the site to operate with taps as intended.

2. Utilise the m.website.com format.

Ensure that, through responsive web design, the mobile version of a website is easily recognisable from the desktop version. However, the user interface should be optimised to highlight key features, as screen space is limited.

3. Use Consistent Scrolling

Create pages that scroll left or right, but not both. Many users won’t realise that a page goes left, when they’re used to flicking right. Scrolling up and down can also get confusing. A consistent design can make sure visitors don’t miss any content they would like to see.

4. Add Dynamic Content

As 4G becomes standard, designers should feel at home adding video and image galleries to their mobile Web space. Not everyone has the fastest data speeds, however, so there should be a way for those with 2G and 3G to opt out without having to abandon the site altogether.

5. App Emulation

Smartphone users are used to apps, so when designers serve pages that look and act like an app, they feel at home. Some developers prefer to create a mobile website instead of an app so users always have the latest content at their fingertips.

After getting started with these tips, developers should not forget other important aspects of development such as social integration and flash-free construction. With a little special attention, mobile websites for 2012 can be better and more profitable for every.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

These days, it’s hard to hold on to your mobile phone for the full term of your contract. 12, 18 or 24 months can seem an awfully long time when bigger, brighter and better phones seem to be coming out on a seemingly daily basis. Of course, several of the major mobile networks offer the chance to ditch your totally useless mobile in before your term is up, in return for a renewal of your contract. So what is the sensible shopper to do? Read on.

The answer: buy SIM-free. I know, I know. It’s expensive, but these days it makes more sense to go down the more expensive route in the short term to reap the long term benefits. For example, if you find yourself in the market for a HTC Desire HD, the phone itself can be purchased SIM-free  online. Now, the original price might be a little bit pricey at first, but think for a second. You’re likely to have a phone you’re wanting to get rid of, say, an iPhone 3GS 16GB. Cash 4 Phones will offer you a cool £100 for your old mobile, effectively knocking the price of the HTC Desire HD SIM-free down. Sounds better already, right?

Even better, you’re now free to ditch your contract at the end of the term. Most people are paying somewhere in the region of £30 per month for -frankly- awful levels of minutes, texts and data packages. There are many alternatives to the big networks, the best of which is GiffGaff. GiffGaff is a community run network, based off the back of O2′s signal to ensure good network coverage. Because they don’t spend money on big advertising campaigns or shops that means they deliver all the savings to you for some almost absurdly cheap pricing. For example, a £10 goody bag will net you 250 minutes, properly unlimited texts and truly unlimited internet (100GB, if you like). And the best part? It’s a rolling contract, if you’re struggling for cash one month, just don’t bother paying and you’ll not be charged a penny.

With that, over the coming months you’ll be saving a good chunk of money whilst simultaneously getting more bang for your buck. Not sounding so expensive now? I didn’t think so. Not only that though, you’re also opening the door to much faster updates for your phone. Every carrier on the planet not only loads up their Android phones with useless software, but they spend a long time going about it. After a new version of Android is released, phone manufacturers then begin work upgrading their product portfolio to the latest version, the software is then sent to all phone networks for them to do with it as they want. This can lead to delays of up to months, something you’re going to completely eliminate if you’re free from the shackles of carrier locked mobile.

It’s not all sunshine and roses, you are going to have to swallow that initial purchase cost, which will make something of a dent in your bank balance, but to my mind, there’s no better way to get a smartphone these days.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

An Alexa rank can be considered as a little bit like a car badge. In the world of saloons in the UK for instance, Mercedes and BMW as well as Jaguar reign supreme. In the middle you have Audi, Volkswagen, Seat and Skoda (all VAG, curiously) whilst at the bottom of the pile you’ve got Ford, Renault and Peugeot. The problem, though, is that everybody wants that Mercedes or BMW and they will work their minds in to the ground to get it, even if that means performing practices which are both unethical and, in cases, rather impatient.

Yes, for a long time now the Alexa rank for a website has been used as a primary tool of the SEO company and online marketing folk to ascertain exactly how successful a website is and roughly how much traffic any given website receives. The problem with that though is that Alexa ranks can be fabricated, and often SEO’ers can be swayed away from a website or drawn to a website based on false information. The thing is though; who really cares if you fabricate your Alexa rank to make you look more successful than you really are?

Well in UK law, misrepresenting a product (i.e your blog) is illegal and a buyer should get what is described to them. Now I’m not sure whether this actually applies in law to websites and SEO advertising, but it is unethical and false misrepresentation for sure. Despite the world of fabricating Alexa rankings being well known to online marketers however, they’ll still look at and use Alexa as a tool to check on a website. So who’s more stupid, the website owner or the marketer? Well the source of the problem is the website owner.

Tell tale signs of a faked Alexa rank

I see new blogs get indexed by Google almost every day and all of them start out life with an Alexa rank of n/a because quite simply they aren’t important at the early stages of development. It always makes me laugh however when I see a website which has been going for literally one month which suddenly and magically garners an Alexa rank of under 200k, and by the next month under 100k. It makes me laugh because 99% of the time these websites are poorly designed with rather rubbish content written by what seems to be an ape. I mean, who on earth would ever want to go there and more importantly, why would THOUSANDS of people flock there?

The answer to that question is, in almost all cases, they wouldn’t. Instead, these websites are likely shipping with a fabricated Alexa rank.

But how do the owners of blogs fabricate their Alexa rank? Well there are a few ways actually; the first one is to pay for and download a tool or ‘bot’ which if left running for 30 days can dramatically better your Alexa rank in a month and the second way webmasters can fabricate their Alexa rank is to purchase Alexa toolbar visitors through a third party, which is fantastically easy (just search on Google ‘buy website traffic’ ‘buy Alexa visitors’ or ‘cheap website traffic’).

Another tell tale sign of a website fabricating their Alexa rank is to check their Alexa page itself. To the untrained webmaster, purchasing website visitors is a great idea, however if they buy bulk traffic their purchased visitors will not be GEO location specific, meaning thousands of visitors will come from countries which don’t speak the websites native tongue yet alone have any interest in what the blog has to say. My basic rule of thumb is:

If a website is from the UK, and is targeting the UK, their website shouldn’t have a high percentage of visitors from India, China or any other country. Instead, it should have a high number of visitors from the country their content is actually trying to sell to. Of course, there are cases where certain UK websites have a topic popular in other countries, but if that website honestly can not garner traffic from its home country, it is time the owner took some online marketing lessons in order to streamline their targeting efforts.

The upsides to Alexa fabrication

The upsides to faking an Alexa rank will only apply to the websites owner. Essentially, if a blog or website has a high Alexa rank (generally under 150k) then that website MUST receive a decent amount of traffic to the untrained eye, meaning the advertising space on the website will be a sound investment to a marketer. To the owner of said website this means that a) they will get more leads, and more contact for advertising and b) that they can charge more for it.

A higher Alexa rank = more advertising sales, more interest.

The downsides to Alexa fabrication

The downsides to faking an Alexa rank only really apply to online marketing and SEO folk. Essentially, online marketers and SEO’ers in a lot of cases simply do not check thoroughly the background of a website they are thinking of purchasing advertising on, and with that pay for a text link or banner ad which they probably wouldn’t have bought in the first place. The other downside to Alexa fabrication is this; if you are a webmaster, there are online marketers like me around who can see through your blog with the precision of Superman’s X-Ray vision. I will never buy or contribute to a website I find to be misleading.

Conclusion

I can see where the benefits of fabricating an Alexa rank lie for a webmaster, however the fact remains that if you do fabricate your Alexa rank, it is highly likely you are either massively impatient and perceive yourself as clever enough to get away with Alexa fabrication or your blog is simply too poorly written and designed to garner any solid interest organically. Essentially, your online effort hasn’t turned out quite how you would have liked, and Alexa fabrication is going to make you feel better about it.

The problem though with the above is this; Alexa fabricators generally think that there is nothing an advertiser can do to find out their Alexa rank is faked, but there is. And you will be found out. The biggest and best bit of advice I could give anybody who is in the SEO industry regarding Alexa fabrication is to ask the owner of said website to send you a screenshot of their Google Analytics, filtered to show a chart showing the numbers of ‘organic’ visitors the blog receives over the space of one month. If the website is legit, it’ll show a fair few thousand visitors per day through organic search alone to be under 130k. If you are still not sure after this, then ask to see where the majority of their visitors come from backed up by another Google Analytics screenshot of their demographics by location.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

If you have just installed the chrome browser on your computer or you are an old chrome user who wants to spice up your browser this article will be listing the top 10 addons you can install on your chrome browser to enjoy your fast internet connection.

You will notice that I’m laying emphasis on the importance of having a high speed internet in the title – the reason for this is that even if you have a fast computer having a slow internet connection will affect your usage of these addons and will eventually result in your internet connection being very slow. Below are 10 addons you must install on your chrome browser if you want to enjoy your internet connection.

1. Xmarks Bookmark

This is the first addon you should install on your chrome browser because of the great work it does. We are all known for bookmarking our favorite websites and articles for later reading and at the end of the day we might end up having a huge list of bookmarks that will take a while to read. If you don’t want anything to happen to your bookmarks should your computer crash then you need to install the Xmarks Bookmark as it will automatically back up your bookmarks online and you can easily sync them your other browsers or to other computers.

2. Feedly

If you are a tech blogger or an avid blog/internet reader who uses tools like Google reader and other feed reader to subscribe to your favorite blogs then feedly might be your next best friend. With feedly instead of the usual ugly feed layout common with most feed readers your content will be organized in a unique magazine-like way for your easy consumption.

3. Session Manager

Have you ever been in a situation where you want to shut down your computer but still have some important pages of content you want to read? Sometimes these pages might be logged on or the page you are reading might be constantly updated but you want to read that particular article (say on the homepage of your favorite tech blog). You can make things easy by installing the Session Manager addon for chrome. It makes things easy for you by creating timestamp for you to easily access your content from exactly where you stop.

4. Shareolic

If you’re someone who reads a lot of blogs everyday you will often come across social sharing buttons below their posts. There are some situations when you will read a great post on your favorite blog and you will want to share it on a particular social network but can’t find the button to do so. The shareolic addon for Google chrome makes it easy for you share your favorite content on your favorite blog to any social network. It also makes it easy for you to email blog posts to your friends without any hassles.

5. Web of Trust

Do you know how many websites you visit every day? There is every probability you visit hundreds of websites daily and some of us even visit thousands of websites every day. The problem with this is that we don’t know which website is okay and which website is harmful for our computer. Web of trust ranks and flags websites that aren’t healthy for your computer and having its addon installed on your chrome browser will make it easy for you to know which website you shouldn’t read.

6. IE Tab for Chrome

If you do a lot of projects and research on the internet you will have come across one or two websites that aren’t supporting your browser and are only supporting internet explorer. A lot of us don’t love using internet explorer but in situations like these we’re forced to go back to it.

By installing IE Tab on your chrome browser you can easily use it to access any website that requires IE and you will be able to do whatever you want in your chrome browser.

7. LastPass for Chrome

It is very important that you don’t use the same passwords for all your accounts to ensure your online security. It can be very difficult to remember all your passwords but with LastPass for Chrome you can have as many passwords and store them within it. This means you no longer have to worry about experiencing any problems with your passwords.

8. Adblock

I find it really irritating to visit a website only to start hearing a music playing in the background. By the time I check where this music is coming from I will discover it is coming from an ad on the website I visited. These kinds of ads can be really dangerous, and can sometimes infect your computer with a virus. The best thing to do in a situation like this is to install an ad blocking software, and the best addon for this is the chrome Adblock addon.

9. FastestChrome

This addon is particularly useful for those who love to research a lot and read a lot on the internet. What it does is that it enhances your research and reading online in such a way that you can easily highlight a word you don’t know the meaning of and it will give you the meaning in a short period of time.

10. Jamendo Radio

If you’re an internet user who is more inclined to using multimedia the Jamendo Raido for chrome addon is an addon that plays music from www.jamendo.com. It also shows you a list of the available channels for you to select from and there’s no better way to enjoy your high speed internet connection than to have an addon like this.

This guest post is written by Paul who writes for Broadband Expert on how to choose the best high speed internet providers.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

Windows Phone. It’s a curious beast, isn’t it? Formally the laughing stock of the mobile industry for its steadfast determination to turn your phone into an under powered PC, it underwent a complete, ground up transformation in 2010 where it became something entirely new. Since then, we’ve had one wave of standardized devices running the software, so how does this second round fare? We’ve got a HTC Radar, let’s find out.

Editors note: All images soon to be added.

Hardware

There’s no shortage of love for HTC’s build quality around the fictional walls of this here website, quite frankly, we adore it. Their now near constant use of aluminium unibody designs has won many of our cold hearts and it continues to do so here, on the HTC Radar. The entire device is wrapped in aluminium, which not only does wonders for build quality but outfits the device with a high end feel despite its decidedly mid market target. Unlikesome of HTC’s other mobile efforts, the battery is completely sealed into the design, with the only breaks in the design being two rubber cutouts for both the camera sensor/speaker/LED flash and sim card/antenna. Reppin’ the right hand side we have a thin metal volume slider and a ever so slightly fatter two-stage camera shutter button whilst along the top we’re only a 3.5mm headphone jack and a on/off button away from complete emptiness. Thankfully, both of those things are there. Which is a needlessly complicated way of expressing that, isn’t it? The phones face is home to a 3.8″ Super-LCD screen, the standard set of three Windows buttons (from left to right: Back, Home, Search) and on our sim-free variant, a simple HTC logo along the top.

Design wise, it’s something of a strange one. Both minimalist and yet strangely cluttered, the use of slightly differently coloured metals and plastics across the design tend to want to draw your attention everywhere at once. That’s not to say it’s an ugly phone, I found it perfectly handsome and it does rest inside your hand rather beautifully, something which most phones seem to be ignoring at they strive for ever huger screen sizes cough-Galaxy Note-cough. True also, the buttons are well placed and consistently easy to access and press. Still, it’s not going to have anyone throwing their underwear at it, is it?

All the standard Windows Phone 7 things

In case you didn’t know, Windows have a whole host of hardware requirements that have to be met in order for the phone to be of a high enough quality. Without going too bore-core on you, it means that while every WP7 handset is fast, fluid and generally beautiful to use, there’s very few ways to differentiate your product from those of your competitors. Unsurprisingly, the Radar adheres to all of Windows demands which can all be found here. In the interest of both your time and mine, I’ll cut this review down to only the bits worth mentioning.

Screen

With Microsoft standardizing the screen resolution at 480 x 800, and HTC having a bunch of Super-LCDs knocking around from their still great Desire S, it would appear they plumped for a startlingly similar panel here on the Radar. If you’ll direct your attention back towards my Desire S review (link) you’ll find I was quite taken with the screen. Obviously, software differences mean a slight change in temperature and colour reproduction between the two phones, but what you’re finding here is essentially the same panel with a 0.1″ size difference. Colours pop out and touch response is consistently perfect, however, WP7 does draw attention to those less than perfect black levels due to the sheer amount of black used around the operating system, it’s more charcoal than ink, that’s for sure. For a mid-range phone though, viewing angles hold up across board and it’s generally a real pleasure to behold.

Cameras (both front facing, and rear)

 Oh, my old friend the front facing camera! What a useless beast you are. Akin to the recent (and thankfully dying) 3D trend in cinemas, it’s been a marketing push towards something that sounds great in theory but in practice often turns out entirely useless. HTC has seen fit to equip the Radar with a 0.3 megapixel front facing sensor, which is great for, uh, looking at yourself. Of course, you could flex some of  WP7′s new video calling muscles but it’s still as uncomfortable, unnatural and tiresome as it always was.

Thankfully then, you’ve got a more traditional rear facing affair to fall back on for your everyday needs. It’s 5MP and pretty bloody alright, actually. WP7′s camera application is fast, functional and includes as enough bells and whistles for you to give yourself at the very least, a mild headache. Touch to focus is present and accounted for, as is the two stage camera button which -remarkably- works just like a two stage camera button. Image quality is on the whole, a very mixed bag, shots can be quite unpredictable. Lighting, for example, is a constant problem for the Radar. It seems to take umbrage with indoor and outdoor lighting mixing, like in my living room, it also struggles with macro shots and as most phone cameras will attest to – low light conditions. The LED flash on the rear does provide a decent amount of light, illuminating darker scenes rather effectively if they’re within speaking distance. Really, the sensor here is hard to pin down. You’ll be getting good to great shots 60% of the time, and terrible ones the other 40%.

Video is much the same, the Radar captures it at a consistent 30fps in 720p, but suffers from a serious case of rolling shutter syndrome which somewhat dampens the whole affair. Colours are represented as they are in stills, and outside things tend to look really good. Just be wary of stepping indoors, noise creeps in easily and you can almost forget about using it in the dark.

Windows Phone 7.5

Plenty of words have been shed across the internet regarding the latest version of Windows rejuvenated operating system, so I won’t go into detail. What I will do, however, is discuss it from the point of an Android user whose been there since the very, very ugly start (howdy, G1). I love Android, it’s got a place in my heart. So when I decamped and moved towards WP7 it was for practical reason, I couldn’t afford a decent Android handset. So here’s what I think; Wp7 is beautiful, fluid and almost extremely good.

In many ways, 7.5 has caught up with the competition; multi-tasking, front facing cameras, the works. In others, not so much. This is still a young operating system, there are some parts of the OS which just don’t make sense. For example, the hardware search button constantly drags you into a Bing search screen, and not a context aware search, so you’re constantly having to remind yourself that you’ve got to find the search function in each individual app. It’s not fair to say these kind of quirks are all over the OS, but they aren’t all that hard to find either. Microsoft have dedicated, and promise to continue to do so, a lot of time and money into making this the very best mobile operating system. With the likes of Nokia now producing great hardware to go alongside the software, developers are flooding into the market place (it just reached 50,000 applications at the time of this review) and I promise you, the marketplace gets better with each passing day.

I find myself growing ever fonder of WP7, it’s within spitting distance of being great. To be that, it needs to fix some of its quirks and inconsistencies, allow for higher screen resolutions and dual-core processors. Todays mobile market, much as it ever was, is dominated by marketing jargon. Customers likely don’t notice the speed differences between a single core and dual core phone, nor do they really need an incredibly high resolution screen, but they want these things. With Microsoft putting the brakes on these things, customer adoption has understandably been limited. No one phone can be crowned the halo device, there is no Galaxy S II for Windows, only a series of very good, competent mobiles. The real worry is, is that enough?

Wrap up

 There really is only so much to say about the HTC Radar, it’s a Windows Phone 7 device with great build quality, a nice screen and a camera that takes pictures pretty well sometimes. It’s a pleasure to use, like all of its cousins running the same operating system. So what sets it apart? Price. It’s decidedly mid range and you can bet some time in the near future it’ll be dropping to incredibly reasonable prices both on contract and off. At that level, the combination of hardware and software here is as tight as can be , you could do much, much worse than grab a Radar. That is, if you’re ready to embrace WP7.

Rating: 7 out of 5 stars (7/10)

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

If you were ever in the market for a Mophie Juice Pack Air or even Urbanista Las Vegas iPhone 4/4S case due to their ability to recharge your smartphone, then the i.Fuzen HP-1 makes a good case for itself as an alternative to these due to it having one extra and rather significant feature on top of recharging; it’s a headphone amplifier. Essentially, this is two products in one, but can it live up to it’s claimed promises of +44 hours of audio playback from a single charge and more importantly to the die hard Apple fan keep the iPhone’s neat design in check? Read on.

In the box

The box itself for the i.Fuzen HP-1 is white and orange due to the model we have right here being white in colour, however there is a black variant available and the box for that model is black and red. Inside the box you’ll find your i.Fuzen HP-1 case, a mini-USB cable to charge it up and all the manual / warranty paperwork you’d expect from any product in this day and age.

Overall, the box is well designed and the outer packaging is recyclable with thanks to it being cardboard. The internal plastic shelving however isn’t, unfortunately.

Case design

After reviewing the Urbanista Las Vegas iPhone 4/4S case not long back, and that product being really rather gorgeous to set eyes on, the i.Fuzen can’t match it in build quality nor looks however is well designed nether-the-less. Towards the bottom of the case you have your micro-USB port which is covered for protection against dust / grime  and your two headphone amplifier sockets of the 3.5mm variety (which is a good thing, bearing in mind that’s what all consumer headphones rock). On the right bottom hand side of the case is a ‘sound button’ which toggles the headphone amplifier feature on and off and towards the back of the case there is a power button and status light. Pressing the power button will light up your status light to let you know just how much charge your i.Fuzen has left.

All in all the buttons are well laid out and easy to access whilst having a quality feel to them. Moving on to build quality and materials and the i.Fuzen is okay. It’s made from plastic, much like 99.9% of charger cases, but it rattles a little bit if you give it a shake which is the by-product of the opening mechanism the case utilizes to allow you to slip your smartphone in. Essentially, you slide your iPhone in to the case by simply lifting of the top section which is handily attached at all times to the rest of the case by two flexible rubber strips (the culprits of that rattle). Once your iPhone is in, the rattle subdues, eliminating the small problem above.

The plastics used to make the case feel pretty durable all in all, and I’d expect the shell of the case would survive a drop or two not that I recommend that. There are cutouts on the case for the camera and flash, as well as volume rocker, 3.5mm jack and power buttons.

Carrying the case around is easy enough too thanks to the i.Fuzen HP-1 weighing in at a fairly respectable 70g, which is 50% of what the iPhone 4S weighs. Naturally, you can tell the case is on when in your pocket, however it isn’t unbearable and after a while you get used to the case being on. Overall, the added functionality it brings outweighs the extra bulk.

In use

Lets get the charging part of this case out of the way; in all my tests, the i.Fuzen met its claims. +44 hours of audio playback? Check. +11 hours of video playback? Check. +8 hours of talk time? Check. +6 hours of 3G internet browsing? Check. +11 hours of WiFi? You bet. If you are purchasing the i.Fuzen mostly for the recharging feature alone, then the i.Fuzen does live up to its promises.

Moving on to perhaps the most significant feature of this case, its headphone amplifier feature, and the i.Fuzen again lives up to its promises. Indeed, the case does boost the iPhone 4S’s sound output to 180mW with a 113dB signal to noise ratio (and in human terms a decent amount) allowing you to listen to music at a better quality than it was before with less distortion. The inclusion of the extra 3.5mm headphone jack means that your friend can also listen to your tunes from their own headphones, a very neat feature which I’m sure a lot of people would kill for. If I could give anybody a tip with the amp, convert your tunes to FLAC format, it makes for some great clarity.

One strange and notable part of this case is that one can not change the volume of their song or video when using the headphone amplifier feature, as the iPhone seemingly gets rid of the touch input options to change volume and the hardware volume buttons do not respond. It’s a very frustrating feature and I’m not sure why it happens.

Pricing

You can pick up an i.Fuzen HP-1 from Advanced MP3 Players for just £69, an awesome price bearing in mind you are getting two completely usable features in one package.

Overall

The i.Fuzen HP-1 is a solid performer. It lives up to charging claims, it boosts the quality of audio, and it’s design whilst not the flashiest  does compliment its purpose well. After hard thinking however, the ability of being able to change the volume of a song when using the amp feature is simply essential, so I have had to knock 2 marks of the final star verdict below to reflect this.

Rating: 7 out of 5 stars (7/10)

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.