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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%
Panasonic Lumix GF2 vs. GF1... fight!
If yesterday's preview of the GF2 wasn't enough for you, here's a little more eye candy to feast upon. We paired up Panasonic's all-new Micro Four Thirds shooter with the GF1 that preceded it and collected a nice little gallery for your perusal below. The major difference between the two is in their dimensions -- the GF2 feels a lot closer to your typical compact camera -- though there are plenty of smaller modifications as well, such as the refashioned grip on the camera's right side, the replacement of the jog dial up top with a stereo mic array, and the introduction of a luminous iA button for switching on the intelligent auto mode. The back of the GF2 is also quite a bit tidier, which has been achieved mostly by eliminating some buttons in favor of the touchscreen interface. Check it all out below or jump past the break for some video action. %Gallery-106820%
iOS has a bigger dev army than Android, but will cross-platform apps rule the day?
We oftentimes hear raw numbers of apps bandied about in mobile OS comparisons, but we rarely get any idea of just how many developers are behind the scenes working for each platform. This is the void of knowledge filled by AppStore HQ today, who have gone to their dev directory -- claimed to be a complete listing of all 55,000+ coders whose work is currently available for consumption in the Apple App Store or Android Market -- and stacked them into neat piles of Apple, Google and Gapple programmers. It's immediately apparent that single-platform development is the norm (with Apple holding the predictable edge), but AppStore HQ also provides a list of some of the most well known (and well funded) apps doing the cross-platform dance, and suggests that a movement is afoot toward making software available for both sets of users. Then again, the BNET article below points out the difficulties faced by smaller outfits, who might struggle to find the resources required to port their content over and maintain the skills required to be multi-platform, resulting in them sticking to one environment, irrespective of what allures others might throw their way. Give them both a read, we say.
How-to: figure out the best value iPhone 4 contracts in the UK (updated)
Choices, choices. Do you get the 16GB or 32GB iPhone 4? The black one now or the white one a little later? We can't tell you which variant of Apple's next phone will hold its value best over the coming months, but we can try to clear up a bit of the fogginess surrounding price plans on offer from UK networks. Orange and O2 are the first to drop handset pricing and full contract details, but they haven't made it easy for the discerning buyer, with each carrier offering more than a dozen options. Vodafone, T-Mobile, Three, and even Tesco Mobile are set to follow suit in the coming days and weeks, but we thought we'd get the ball rolling with the pair we have now. Update: And just as we publish this, Voda has gone official with its tariffs. We've now broken them down into a more digestible format as well. Just for you. Update 2: Tesco Mobile has also outed its pricing and it's by far the best of the bunch. Check out the full chart inside the post. Update 3: Three's iPhone 4 pricing has now also been made known.
Nokia N8 benchmarked against N97, makes it look old and busted
Nokia's new hotness, the N8, is starting our week off in fine style. Finest Fones, what looks to be a Symbian-only mobile news site, is reporting its own tests done with the handset that show it comfortably outpacing its predecessor. Of course, in these fog of war-obscured times (before proper hardware is dished out), we can't really be sure of the veracity of what we read, but Symbian^3's newfound ability to exploit graphics hardware seems to be paying off relative to the more primordial ways of the S60 5th software on the N97. The intrepid investigators found a 180 percent performance delta between the two phones in Speedy Go! tests, while the N8 ran through a cycle of FPC bench 3D with perfect 60fps scores each and every time. We won't be convinced by the purported 680MHz CPU inside till we test it out for ourselves with a load of widget-heavy homescreens, but early signs seem to be encouraging.
Windows 7, Mac OS X, and Ubuntu 10.04 meet up for an OpenGL benchmarking session
So these three operating systems walk into a bar one night ... alright, we'll behave. With all the Steamy conversation about gaming on non-Windows desktop platforms going on, we thought you might care to peek at a little OpenGL performance comparison review. As the chief cross-platform API, it's the only way we're going to be seeing the latest games running natively on Mac OS and Linux, but how will that experience compare to the market leader? As it turned out, Windows maintains superiority in this field, with frame rates that were habitually above those on the latest Ubuntu and well ahead of what you might get on Mac OS 10.6.3. It's still early days -- after all, Steam's non-DirectX cupboard is pretty bare right now -- but at this point in time, OpenGL gaming is a crown that Microsoft retains with relative ease. Hit the source for all the line graph evidence, and let's hope things improve for the rest of us in rapid fashion.
MOTO touchscreen comparison recruits robotic implements for heightened precision (video)
So you saw that the first MOTO smartphone touchscreen comparison was done with a fleshy humanoid controlling the testing finger and discounted it as scientifically flawed? Well, MOTO's back and this time the arm of judgment is operated by a coldly mechanical and ruthlessly precise robot -- a machine in itself, we'll assume the robot is intrinsically immune to developing fanboy tendencies. Joining the iPhone, Droid Eris, Droid, and Nexus One of the earlier test are Palm's Pre and RIM's BlackBerry Storm 2, whose results you can see at the source link below. The full test methodology is also explained there, including a list of the drawing apps used, which were selected with a view to minimizing smoothing algorithms that may prejudice the outcome. We're not gonna tell you who won, you have eyes of your own after all, and will just direct you after the break for the full robot-on-smartphone video action.
Apple's gigabit / non-gigabit AirPort Extreme base stations compared
Considering that Apple has been known to release products without all the features, um, enabled out of the box, it seemed fair to question the (now previous) AirPort Extreme's inability to handle gigabit speeds. Apparently unable to shun curiosity, the investigatory folks over at ComputerWiz decided to break open both the gigabit and non-gigabit editions of the AirPort Extreme, and unfortunately for those hoping that their older iteration could be upgraded with a simple firmware patch, that doesn't look to be the case. After closer inspection, the non-gigabit model packed a Broadcom BCM5325 chip, which only contains "five full-duplex 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX Fast Ethernet transceivers," while the newest AE possesses a Broadcom BCM5395, which of course understands gigabit requirements just fine. Ah well, at least you can stop wishin', eh?
