Category: Hands-on
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Nokia Lumia 1320 hands-on

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The Nokia Lumia 1320 is considered the cheap man’s Lumia 1520, but that doesn’t make it less important than its high-end sibling. In fact, recently it was exactly Nokia’s more affordable devices that have been moving its business forward. Okay, technically, it’s now Microsoft’s business, but let’s stay on topic.

At the front, the Lumia 1320 boasts a 720p 6″ IPS ClearBlack display. It’s bright and boasts great colors, but you can notice that it’s not as sharp as the Lumia 1520′s equally-sized, but higher resolution screen. The cutback is understandable though, Nokia needs a mid-range runner who can quickly catch up to the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3. Read more »

Nokia Asha 503 hands-on

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The latest and greatest amongst the Asha lineup – the Asha 503 – has recently arrived at our office. As usual we unboxed it in front of a camera and then shot a short user interface walkthrough.

The Asha 503 introduces 3G connectivity to the series, while inheriting Asha 502′s 5MP camera with a LED flash. It also comes in a brand new glass-imitating shell, which is actually the familiar Asha design covered with an additional transparent layer of glossy plastic. Read more »

Element Case Sector 5 Carbon Fiber Edition for iPhone 5s review

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As its name suggests, this particular version of the Element Case Sector 5 for iPhone 5s features the increasingly fashionable and lightweight carbon fiber. Designed and manufactured in the United States, the Element Case offering is part of a small club of iPhone accessories, whose design and finish sit on par with those of Apple’s latest smartphone.

Founded in California back in 2007, Element Case is established as one of the premier makers of high-end protective covers for smartphones. This year, the company announced a partnership with the Italian motorcycle manufacturer Ducati which will see a dedicated collection of its cases be sold alongside the legendary bikes. Read more »

European Motorola Moto X hands-on

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Motorola finally announced its Moto X flagship smartphone for the European countries earlier today. The latest smartphone from the Google owned company is quite popular in the US for its intriguing user experience and the European variant isn’t any different from the American version.

We got our hands dirty with the European variant of the Motorola Moto X at its launch event in London. Read more »

Sennheiser CX 275s in-ear headphones review

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The Sennheiser CX 275s are pair of in-ear headphones designed specifically for mobile devices. One of the key features of this product is a universal microphone and call pickup/cancel button that is designed to work with practically every smartphone and tablet out there.

Other than the headset functionality, Sennheiser also promises a ‘bass driven stereo sound’ so you can definitely expect some bass-heavy sound. Let’s see how well it does in that department and in other frequency ranges. Read more »

ASUS PadFone mini hands-on

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Alongside the trio of Zenfone devices, ASUS released a new PadFone mini. Unlike the dual-SIM, Qualcomm-powered device with the same name which broke cover in December last year, the newcomer features Intel Atom SoC.

The new ASUS PadFone mini consists of a compact smartphone with 4” WVGA IPS+ display and a docking station with a 7” screen of the same type. Read more »

Gionee Elife E7 hands-on

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Chinese phonemaker Gionee hasn’t been the most prominent player in the smartphone market, but the company wants to start making dents with its latest candidate – the Elife E7. The company claims the Elife E7 to pack the best Android camera on the market and at least on paper it’s hard to argue with that.

That’s why we were eager to pay the Gionee both a visit and see for ourselves what the phone is all about. The phone itself was announced at the end of November last year and its CES 2014 appearance marks its US debut, which is in line with the company’s plans for distribution outside China in early 2014. Read more »

ZTE Grand SII LTE, Nubia Z5S LTE, Iconic Phablet, BlueWatch hands-on

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At this year’s CES, ZTE outed the second iteration of its Grand S flagship, alongside a worthy Nubia Z5 successor and an entry-level CDMA Iconic Phablet.

We also got our hands on the ZTEs first wearable tech offering, the eerily Pebbe-like BlueWatch. Read more »

Xiaomi MI-3 hands-on

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Xiaomi unfortunately has yet to make its smartphones global, but the smartphone maker was at CES and we got to handle the MI-3.

It’s an Android-powered phone but Xiaomi uses a custom interface – MIUI v5 built on Android 4.2. It looks and feels quite different. Read more »

Alcatel One Touch Hero phablet hands-on

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The Alcatel One Touch Hero is a 6″ phablet with a stylus to boot that aims to win the hearts of people who can’t afford the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. We were pleasantly surprised at how well put together the device is – solid build quality, small bezels and good materials bring the Hero well out of Alcatel’s usual entry-level range.

The phablet also has an intriguing accessory system that promises to be among its biggest assets. Read more »

Asus Transformer Book Duet hands-on

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The last device Asus announced on CES at Las Vegas was the innovative Asus Transformer Book Duet. It’s a dual-boot slate with a detachable keyboard dock that looks a bit like MacBook Air and can run both Android 4.2 and Windows 8.1 in both tablet and laptop modes.

The slate is based on Intel i3/i5/i7 with the latest Intel’s dual OS platform that allows running Android and Windows on a single device and supports switching instantaneously between them via a single button. Asus rates the switching time to 4s and it appears about right when trying it for real. Read more »

Asus Zenfone 6 hands-on

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Asus Zenfone 6 is the last and biggest of the newly announced Zenfones. It comes with a 6″ IPS 720p display and runs on the same Intel Atom Z2580 chipset as the Zenfone 5.

As we mentioned before, all Zenfones are dual-SIM devices, and the Zenfone 6 phablet makes no exception. The rest of the specs include a 13MP rear camera, 8 or 16GB expandable storage, and a massive 3,200 mAh battery. Read more »

Asus Zenfone 5 hands-on

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Asus Zenfone 5 is the second smartphone from the company’s latest Zenfone trio. As the name suggests, the handset comes with a 5″ screen, which is a 720p unit of the IPS+ variety. The smartphone runs on the fastest available Intel chipset – the Atom Z2580, which gives you a dual-core 2.0GHz Atom processor with hyper-threading, PowerVR SGX 544MP2 graphics and 1GB of RAM.

Zenfone 5, just like the other two Zenfones, is a dual-SIM device. The rest of its specs highlights include 4, 8 or 16 GB expandable storage, 8MP Sony BSI rear camera and Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with a KitKat update being in the works already. Read more »

Samsung Galaxy Camera 2 hands-on

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Samsung did well to refresh the Android-powered Galaxy Camera, yet despite the “Galaxy Camera 2″ moniker, the changes are minor. The most obvious thing is the finish – gone is the glossy plastic, replaced by Samsung’s cool faux leather.

This, combined with the brushed metal accents (also plastic), actually makes the camera look classy. Read more »

Alcatel One Touch Idol X+ hands-on

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Alcatel has become known for its low- to mid-range Android phones lately, but with the One Touch Idol X+ the manufacturer attempted a higher-end product.

The Idol X+ was previously announced in China, but now Alcatel has brought it worldwide and we couldn’t miss the opportunity to take it for a quick spin. Read more »