Microsoft joined the Apple-bashing bandwagon after the launch of the new iPhone 5c and the iPhone 5s. Their new series of videos released on YouTube were aimed to purely make fun of the new iPhones without any promotion of their own products.

The videos titled ‘A fly on the wall in Cupertino’ show two Apple employees brainstorming with what looks like Steve Jobs and Jony Ive, discussing ideas for their next iPhone. They talk about making the new phone in various color, the choice to go with plastic and the fingerprint scanner. Read more »

Now that you’ve taken a sneak peak at our Sony Xperia Z1 still camera, it’s time to treat yourself to some video samples. As you’d imagine, the 20.7MP Exmor RS camera doesn’t break a sweat at shooting 1080p videos. In fact we were slightly disappointed to find out that those 4K recording rumors didn’t pan out, but there are not a lot of screens that support that yet, so it’s unclear how big a loss that is.

Sony has updated its camera software to suit the larger, 1/2.3″ image sensor and allows you to shoot videos in Superior, Manual and HDR modes (among others). We’ve given these three a go and here are the results. Read more »

If you’ve been following us on Facebook today, you know that we have the Sony Xperia Z1 (as well as another high roller, but we’ll talk about it later) on the premises. The 20.7MP camera that the Z1 boasts was making headlines long before the phone itself was made official at the IFA.

Sony promises the Xperia Z1 is Android’s worthy answer to the Nokia Lumia 1020 and its 41MP PureView sensor. We are yet to get answer this, but for now we are hard at work on the Z1′s preview. Don’t worry, the review is coming shortly, too. Read more »

Most electronic devices are abandoned due to a fault that is usually the result of one component going bad. This results in a lot of electronic waste full of devices that are otherwise fully functional save for one or two failed components. So what if you had a phone where you could just replace one component if it goes bad? Or build a phone with just the components you want?

This is what the Phonebloks concept is all about. Conceptualized by Dave Hakkens, Phonebloks is a completely modular mobile phone, where every part such as the display, speaker, camera, battery, etc. are modules that plug into a board and you can remove and replace them as you desire. Read more »

Three companies, three approaches to the “best camera” – Nokia uses a huge sensors with a staggering amount of pixels, HTC used fewer, but bigger pixels and Sony settled for something in between. So, how did it work out for the Japanese company?

A shootout coming from Vietnam tries to provide an answer by pitting Sony’s new hotness, the Xperia Z1, against the Nokia 808 PureView and the HTC One mini. Read more »

After rumors made it abundantly clear that Apple will be delivering yet another S refresh to its flagship this year, rather than a proper upgrade, yesterday’s event become all about the iPhone 5c for me. I was quite excited to see Apple leave its comfort zone and do a smartphone that’s quite different from anything they have done so far.

As it turns out, though, the modest only upgrade that is the iPhone 5s, was only the second biggest disappointment of the night, with the iPhone 5c turning out to be the most notable consumer-stabbing, sales-serving excuse of a product. I know those are some strong words, which is why I waited with this article to see if the bitter taste in my mouth will go away, but sadly it didn’t.

Let’s get something out of the way first – the iPhone 5c is a pretty good smartphone. It’s fresh looking and adequately powered to be a decent mid-ranger, plus its camera has proved to be good enough for the last-year’s flagship. So how bad can it be? Read more »

The iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c might be the “most forward thinking” offerings out there according to Apple, but it seems not everyone is so excited about them.

Wall street has been rather disappointed by last night’s event it seems and has reduced the support for Apple’s stock. The Apple shares’ price dropped by 2.28% in the immediate aftermath of the event and have slid a further 5% in pre-market trading today. Read more »

One of the key new features on the iPhone 5s is the presence of a fingerprint scanner on the Home button, called Touch ID. It essentially remembers your fingerprint and then lets you and only you unlock your phone or make iTunes purchases by simply touching your finger on the Home button.

Turns out, however, those are going to be the only use cases for Touch ID, at least for now. Apple’s Senior Vice President Phil Schiller has revealed that the Touch ID sensor is off limits to third party developers and refused to comment on whether this would change in future. Read more »

The Apple iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c are now official, which makes this the first occasion when we get two iPhones at ones. It was only logical then that we’ll pit them against each other and see who’s who in the new family. The HTC One is also here – firstly, because it couldn’t make it to our other specs shootout, and secondly, because we need a handset to put the two new Apple smartphones in perspective.

This HTC One and the iPhone 5s share a premium aluminum build, but that is where their similarities mostly end. Apple has refused to take the big screen approach with the iPhone 5s, but that’s not really the point of the ‘s’ in its name, is it? Read more »

Apple has designed its own cases to sell with the upcoming iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s. The iPhone 5c cases are made of silicon and come in six colors – white, red, yellow, green, blue and black.

The iPhone 5c cases surely look unorthodox, though we are not sure those holes at the back will appeal to everyone. As a matter of fact, we believe they only go well with Crocs and we are not sure that’s a compliment, either. Read more »

Apple has just revealed its iPhone 5s flagship smartphone and it’s everything that rumors made us expect, really. The company hasn’t redesigned the smartphone, but has made plenty of changes on the inside.

But is it enough? That’s what we will be finding out in the following comparison table. The main rivals of the iPhone 5S come from Korea and they’re the LG G2 and Samsung Galaxy S4. Let’s see what Apple has done with the iPhone 5s in an attempt to stop its melting user base jump over to the Android camp. Read more »

Apple just announced the new iPhone 5s and bragged about its improved iSight camera. The new unit has a wider aperture (F/2.2 vs. F/2.4 for the iPhone 5) and “15% larger pixels” (1.5µm, up from 1.4µm). Feast your eyes on the first official camera samples from the new iPhone.

By the way, Apple skirted the subject a bit but the camera still shoots 8MP stills. Read more »

Motorola has released a new ad campaign for the Moto X. Called the ‘Lazy Phone’, the new ads concentrate on some of the key new features of the Moto X, such as the hands-free voice recognition functionality.

There are three ads so far, each of which features an actor who represents your current phone. In the first ad a guy is trying to play a song using just his voice but the ‘phone’ urges him to touch him instead whereas the Moto X can do the same with just a voice command. Read more »

The last smartphone we met before we say goodbye to the IFA 2013 was not actually presented on the expo. Unlike Samsung, Sony, Acer and Asus, Nokia didn’t even hire a booth to show its devices to the consumers. We still managed to find the latest Lumia 625 smartphone at one of the IFA side-events, showcased by the company’s new owner – Microsoft. It’s quite an interesting gadget that offers big screen on a budget price.

Nokia announced the Lumia 625 back in July, a couple of weeks after the company unveiled its 41MP Lumia 1020 cameraphone monster. This is also the last Lumia phone unveiled before Microsoft acquisition of Nokia Devices and Services. And while it’s still unclear what will happen with the rumored Lumia 1520 phablet, the Lumia 625 has already gone on sale. Read more »

The Nokia Lumia 1020 and the recently announced at IFA 2013 Sony Xperia Z1 are the hottest cameraphones out there. Sadly, we are still in the process of obtaining both of them for an extensive camera shootout, but luckily our colleagues at TBreak.se have managed to do that already and had some quick shots to share with it.

The photos range from landscape through macro to night shots and give a very decent idea of what the Z1 is really capable of. If you’ve been following our extensive IFA 2013 coverage (and you really should), then you’d know that we took the Z1′s camera for a spin, but it’s interesting to see how it fares against the cameraphone-to-beat – the Nokia Lumia 1020. Read more »