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Samsung Galaxy Nexus vs. Galaxy S II, Nexus One and Nexus S (macro hands-on)
Guess who posed for a family gathering here in Hong Kong? From left to right, we've got the Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S II, Nexus One and Nexus S. The panels on all of these guys are stunning, but we're finding it mighty difficult to choose a favorite between the Galaxy Nexus and the GSII. Have a look at some close-ups in the gallery below, and a typical home video just after the break. %Gallery-136939%
Droid RAZR vs. Droid vs. iPhone 4... fight!
Just how thin is 7.1mm? Well, we could tell you (been there, done that), or we can show you. And what better way to really drive the point home than with some head-to-head shots? We busted out our trusty iPhone 4 and the lead brick that is the first-generation Motorola Droid for good measure. And heck, we had the LG Marquee and Droid Incredible 2 floating around, so we threw those into the mix, as well. So, who's the thinnest of them all? Find out in the gallery below.%Gallery-136878% Zach Honig contributed to this report.
Dell Streak 10 Pro vs. Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1... fight!
Why look at this! Samsung's very own Galaxy Tab 10.1 decided to stop by in Beijing to greet Dell's latest tablet. As mentioned in our hands-on post, it's clear that the Streak 10 Pro would need to go on a little diet to match the Korean tablet's lovely figure and weight, though the latter won't be released in the country until some time next month. Also, there's no doubt that Sammy will continue to ask for a premium price in exchange for the better display and portability, so our wallets will be the final judge. For now, just enjoy our quick and dirty comparison photos in the gallery below. You're welcome. Update: It appears that some of our readers are missing the point: the 16GB WiFi Galaxy Tab 10.1 is being sold for $499 in the US, and it'll most likely be more expensive in China; whereas the Streak 10 Pro is priced at just ¥2,999 ($465). So again, you get what you pay for. %Gallery-129456%
Apple files ITC request to block import of select Samsung devices
And with that, yet another punch is thrown. The slugfest that is Apple vs. Samsung is getting uglier by the minute, as each one pushes the other's buttons in a presumed effort to get paid (or get the other to back down). Just as Apple was being told "no" in a request for a preliminary injunction, it's hoping for a more satisfactory outcome from its most recent filing. That one's headed to the US International Trade Commission in Washington, where Apple's trying to block the import of the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab, amongst other Samsung products. The ITC only stated "Electronic Digital Media Devices," but FOSS Patents has found five utility patents and a pair of design patents -- those encompass a grand total of six Sammy smartphones and a duo of slates. Analysts are stating that an outright ban on Samsung imports is unlikely (no shock there), and the most likely outcome here is a "settlement and cross-licensing deal." Mo' money, mo' problems, right?
Nokia N9 camera: sample images and video
Our first encounter with Nokia's N9 may have been eleven different kinds of awesome, but we knew it was a mere scratch of the high-grade polycarbonate surface. One of the core pieces of functionality we didn't get the chance to address back then was the camera, and after Nokia decided to toot that horn recently -- saying, among other things, that it's the "fastest image-capturing phone" yet -- we decided we had to go back for a second go-around. In terms of performance, Nokia's camera application definitely lives up to the company's own hype, with nearly instant captures and an equally brisk return to a state of readiness for more image-taking. When shooting video, we noted that audio recording starts slightly later than the video, leaving the first half second or so without sound. This isn't an uncommon issue (we've seen it on other phones and tablets) and can be seen in our video sample after the break. Now might be a good time to also mention that the N9s we tested with today were all prototype units, so don't prejudge Nokia's final hardware on the basis of what you see here. Unless your premature judgment is positive, we doubt Nokia would mind that. %Gallery-127313% So anyhow, we took a walk around the company's offices, escorted by a group of unarmed but surely lethal Finnish ninjas, taking shots of the surrounding cityscape as we went. The results show the N9 picking up a ton of detail and controlling noise admirably, while a few impromptu ThinkPad hands-on photos convinced us it can do a pretty stellar job with closeups as well. With a name like N9, however, it was obvious which phone we needed to compare Nokia's lone wolf MeeGo handset to, so out came our trusty N8 with its world-beating 12 megapixel sensor. Alas, in spite of having an F2.2 aperture on the N9, Nokia hasn't managed to replicate the heroics of its earlier device: the N8 shows its advantage in consistently picking out better color balance and in also being sharper throughout the frame. It makes the N9's images appear as if they were shot through a haze, though we hasten to add that this should be considered a strength of the older phone rather than a major failure of the new one. Additionally, the N9 suffers from the typically narrow dynamic range of smartphone camera sensors, which is the cause of the consistently blown-out sky in our gallery images. Still, considering the quick software operation and consistently detailed imagery on offer from the N9, we'd say Nokia is on to a winner here. %Gallery-127317% P.S. -- Looking for the full-size 8 megapixel stills from the N9? We've zipped them up for you right here.
Boeing's Phantom Ray soars like a terrifying, unmanned eagle
Boeing's new Phantom Ray aircraft made a covert first flight last week, taking to the skies above California's Edwards Air Force Base. The unmanned airborne system (UAS) reached 7,500 feet, hitting a maximum speed of 178 knots and flying for a total of 17 minutes -- sure, it won't outlast the Phantom Eye anytime soon, but hey, we've all gotta start somewhere. What the 36-foot long vehicle lacks in relative endurance, it makes up stealth, designed to be undetectable on radar, and thanks to a deeply embedded engine, giving off a minimal amount of heat. Boeing will be running additional tests on the autonomous vehicle in the coming weeks, in attempt to prep it for possible future surveillance and attack missions. No word on when this might actually be hitting an airspace near you, but in the meantime, it's probably best to refrain from ticking off any deep pocketed governments.
LG Optimus Black vs. Galaxy S II and Xperia Arc... fight!
It's time for us to welcome yet another contender in the battle for world's slimmest Android phone: the LG Optimus Black. This 9.2mm-thick handset made its debut to oohs and aahs of admiration at CES earlier in the year, and is now on the very precipice of a global release. Admittedly, it's not quite slender enough to knock the 7.7mm-thick NEC MEDIAS N-04C off its perch as the absolute thinnest, but it is sufficiently slender to give Samsung's Galaxy S II and Sony Ericsson's Xperia Arc a good fright. That pair of smartphones offer thinner proportions on the spec sheet, but when rested on a flat surface they sit ever so slightly higher than the Optimus Black. This is because, unlike its tricky contemporaries, the Optimus Black keeps to the same thickness along its full length (don't laugh), which, technically speaking, makes it the thinnest Android handset on the European market. Check it out in the gallery below or video after the break -- and hold tight, we'll have a full review for you in the coming days! %Gallery-122723%
HTC Sensation versus the rest of the dual-core world: smartphone spec sheet smackdown
We got to feeling a bit curious about how exactly HTC's latest Android superphone, the Sensation 4G, stacks up against its fellow dual-core competition, so we did what every geek does in such situations, we compiled a chart. Included in this list are the finest and brightest Android handsets from each of the major manufacturers that have gone dual-core so far: the Galaxy S II, the Atrix 4G, the Optimus 2X / G2X, and HTC's own EVO 3D. As it turns out, there are quite a few commonalities among these phones (besides the benchmark-crushing performance). They all boast screens of either 4 or 4.3 inches in size, the minimum amount of RAM among them is 512MB, the smallest battery is 1500mAh, and yes, they all have front-facing video cameras. Basically, it's the future of smartphones, reduced to a stat sheet. As such, it must also come with the warning that specs aren't everything, and user experience will most often depend on the software available on each device and on the preferences of the human holding it. With that proviso fully digested, join us after the break for the data.
HTC Sensation versus Incredible S and Desire S... a family scuffle
We just so happened to have our review units of HTC's Incredible S and Desire S on hand during today's Sensation launch event, so what else to do with them than to throw them in with the new 4.3-incher and shoot some photos? The gallery below should give you a pretty good idea of the physical differences between HTC's trio of foremost Android devices for the European market. You won't be able to tell much about the difference a dual-core processor makes, but then what's life without a little mystery? %Gallery-120969%
IE9 is the most energy-efficient modern browser, according to Microsoft's own testing
Of all the battlefields we've witnessed in the browser wars, this one's never really crossed our minds before: energy efficiency. Yes, the power efficiency of a piece of software, not hardware, is being touted by Microsoft as a differentiating feature for its fresh new Internet Explorer 9. It's thrown together the top five most popular browsers and put them through a cycle of benchmarks -- including Microsoft's own FishIE Tank graphics acceleration test, but not the somewhat popular Adobe Flash -- while measuring how much power they use beyond what the underlying Windows 7 system needs to keep itself going. Shockingly, IE9 was the winner each and every time and there's a tenuous conclusion drawn that if you want good battery life, you'll be going with Internet Explorer. Oh well, whether you consider them a good laugh or really valuable buyer's advice, there's plenty more of these power consumption comparisons at the source link below.
Apple iPad 2 Smart Cover vs. InCase Convertible Magazine Jacket... Fight!
By now you've seen Apple's Smart Cover, right? The mind blowing cover (don't call it a case) pretty much stole the show during yesterday's iPad 2 press event, causing children to weep at the sight of our exploded bodies. Thing is, we've seen the design before. Oh sure, Apple improved upon it significantly, but there's no mistaking its InCase Convertible Magazine Jacket heritage. See the two slug it out on video after the break in some kind of weird reverse KIRF cage match. We guess 2011 really is the year of the copycats.
iPad 2 vs. Motorola Xoom vs. HP TouchPad vs. BlackBerry PlayBook: the tale of the tape
You might recall we ran this comparison about a month back when HP's TouchPad was announced, but now we're back with a full set of 2011 devices as Apple's brand new iPad 2 has joined the fray. There's no need for excessive introductions, really, just leap past the break to get swalloped up by an avalanche of next-generation tablet specs.
iPad 2 vs. original iPad: what's changed?
Shockingly enough, Apple found plenty of things to tweak and update on its spectacularly successful iPad. Alright, so the screen resolution didn't improve and we didn't get that ultra-speedy Thunderbolt connector on board, but the iPad 2 is thinner and lighter while somehow becoming more powerful -- a 1GHz dual-core Apple A5 SOC lurks within. Check out our full breakdown of the key spec differences in the chart after the break. It's great fun, we promise!P.S. - While you're poring over these stats, don't forget that Apple's decided to slap a $100 price cut on the original iPads, making them eminently more desirable today than they were yesterday.
AMD compares upcoming Llano Fusion APU with Intel Core i7, puts the heat on Sandy Bridge (video)
So far, AMD's new Fusion chips have been all about the low-end, whether you're talking in terms of price, performance or power consumption, but the company has a vision for its future that has these new Accelerated Processing Units dominating every segment of the market. In order to do that, AMD will need to overcome Intel's latest generation of mainstream processors, the Core 2011 family we're more familiar with under the Sandy Bridge codename. Before you rush past the break and watch AMD's own comparison between said Intel hardware and the forthcoming quad-core Llano APU, be aware that processor performance can rarely be generalized from a single test alone and the one we're witnessing is specifically geared to highlight the Fusion chip's strengths. All that said, the workload demonstrated by AMD -- a 3D game, HD video playback (plus post-processing on the Llano rig), Excel calculations, and some 3D modeling, all running simultaneously -- is handled most impressively by the A8-3510MX APU, which even manages to use less power than Intel's 2GHz Core i7-2630QM. See the video after the break. [Thanks, Vygantas]
Motorola Xoom vs. Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 vs. LG G-Slate -- battle of the Tegra 2 Honeycomb tablets
Hello, Moto -- no wait, Samsung... or is it LG? Three of the world's biggest smartphone makers have leapt at the opportunity to serve up Google's brand new Honeycomb build of Android, however their selection of menu items looks to be somewhat lacking in diversity. Motorola's Xoom matches Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 in both screen size and resolution (1280 x 800), while LG's Optimus Pad / G-Slate offers only marginally smaller measurements with an 8.9-inch display spanning 1280 x 768. More than that, all three tablets run the bone-stock Honeycomb UI and are built around NVIDIA's 1GHz Tegra 2 system-on-chip, leaving little room for differentiation on the basis of user experience or internal performance (LG would have you believe its 3D camcorder is a big advantage for its slate, but we're not so sure). Most choices between the three, then, will come to things like brand loyalty, ergonomics and pure, basic aesthetic appeal. To help you judge the latter of those three points, we've prepared an exhaustive barrage of side-by-side photos below -- we expect you to view every last one of 'em... at least twice. %Gallery-116882% %Gallery-116881% %Gallery-116879%
HTC Flyer vs. Galaxy Tab vs. iPad... fight!
In a world of 10-inch dual-core Androids, HTC has opted to tread its own path by cranking up processor speeds, sticking to a 7-inch form factor and eschewing the latest Honeycomb build for a Gingerbread version it could customize more comprehensively with Sense. All that's well and good, but sometimes all it comes down to is how these gadgets look and feel. So to help you wrap your mind around the Flyer's new aluminum body, we present a couple of comparison galleries with it set against two devices that need no introduction. Get clicking! %Gallery-116842% %Gallery-116843%
iPad vs. TouchPad... Fight!
Spec sheets are one thing, but we know what you really want to see -- two tablets going mano-a-mano in the ring. Here they are, your Apple iPad and HP TouchPad slates, sized up side-by-side each with their own sizable black bezel and 9.7-inch screen -- and incredibly similar in both size and weight. See how they literally stack up in the gallery below! %Gallery-116125%
Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc vs. LG Optimus 2X... fight!
Android is our future, the stat mavens all agree, but for all its rapid growth, Google's OS still suffers from a shortage of top tier differentiation. This has in part been down to LG and Sony -- two of the world's biggest phone makers -- spending the majority of 2010 watching the battle for Android supremacy from the sidelines (the X10 disqualified itself when it announced it neither knew nor cared what Froyo was). 2011 might just be the year of redemption for both, however, as LG will soon assault the European market with a pair of truly desirable and powerful Android smartphones in the Optimus 2X and Black, while Sony Ericsson's well leaked portfolio of new Xperias includes the Arc, Neo and Play, each one of them coming with Gingerbread preloaded. We've wrapped our mitts around a pair of these high-hope devices, one from each manufacturer, and photographed the living daylights out of them sat side by side. %Gallery-115722% We humbly submit that the Xperia Arc looks and feels far more refined than LG's admittedly well designed Optimus 2X. The Arc's curvature seriously makes it feel like the thinnest phone we've ever handled and its weight is also dramatically, unreasonably minimal. Another note of import is that the 2X comes with a 4-inch screen whereas the Arc offers a more generous 4.2-inch display, yet their overall dimensions are nearly identical. All in all, we'd hardly object to having either one in our pockets, but the Arc wins it for us in terms of aesthetic appeal. Of course, the Optimus 2X has a dual-core Tegra 2 heart beating within, it's not all about looks, though in the case of this hands-on comparison, it kind of was. We'll have a full review of LG's handset in the coming days, while Sony Ericsson promises the Xperia Arc will land in Europe by the end of March. You can see more of the prototype unit we got to handle in the gallery below and there's a video comparison of the two Android newcomers after the break as well. %Gallery-115723%
Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc Reality Display vs. Retina Display... fight!
Sony Ericsson isn't being shy about hyping the Xperia Arc's new Reality Display, so we naturally had to take a head-to-head shot with the iPhone 4's Retina Display. They actually compare quite well in person, even though the Arc actually has the same 854 x 480 resolution as the Droid X -- you can definitely see some pixels up close, but since the panel is a hair smaller than the X at 4.2 inches, the pixel density is a little tighter. The real noise behind the Reality Display is Arc's Bravia Engine, which Sony claims will enhance colors and detail just like on Bravia TVs, but we didn't get to play with it too much beyond finding the option in settings to turn it off. We'll obviously be diving deep on that once we score a review unit, but for now check a macro shot and a Droid X comparison after the break.
Jawbone Jambox vs. Soundmatters foxL v2... fight!
Two portable speakers clamber into the ring, each boasting big, beautiful sound for their diminutive size. Both cost $200. Both have the same technology inside. The Jawbone Jambox and the Soundmatters foxL v2 with Bluetooth each want to be your wireless audio wunderkind, blasting music and taking Bluetooth calls. At best, you're only going to buy one. Which speaker should you choose? Following our Jambox review, we got our hands on a foxL and put the two head to head, and after the break you'll see which one came out on top -- both literally and figuratively. %Gallery-111933%
