Google Chromecast

At £30, Google's Chromecast is definitely the cheapest way to turn your TV into a smart TV but if you pick one up at Amazon you'll also get £4.99 of free Google Play credit to spend on apps. Meaning you won't be limited to Google's pre-installed apps

Chromecast is able to mirror video and picture content from your smartphone or tablet, you can also put nearly any web page through Google's Chrome web browser on a laptop or desktop - great for accessing web-based streaming services.

There are a quite few apps which come pre-installed, including iPlayer, Netflix, Plex, Vevo and Youtube - but unlike many other streaming boxes or dongles that are locked down, Google has opened up the Chromecast software to developers to experiment with, meaning there will lots more apps are becoming available all the time.
All this for £30? Seems like a bit of a no brainer. Just slot it into your TV!

My new Nexus 7: First Impressions(review)

Yesterday I received a new Google Nexus 7 (2012). I toyed around with it for a while personalising it, and adding functions to it.

Camera

I was surprised to find that Google had not given the Nexus 7 a camera shortcut. They obviously thought it wasn't that important. There a re several apps on the play store that can access the camera, so it was okay. The Nexus holds a 1.2 megapixel camera (the same front facing camera as an iPad). It's not a Nokia Lumia 1020, which has a very impressive 41 megapixel camera, but it gets the job done - the pictures weren't actually that bad.

Another thing I was surprised about, is that there is no rear facing camera, - perfect for taking selfies;) but you wouldn't be able to take great pictures of something in front of you. (Unless you wanted a picture with it, of course.)

Screen and Size

   This image belongs to Google.                               

The Nexus 7 has a 7" screen and the whole device is 12cm wide - it would easily fit in adults hand. The thickness of it equates to 1.45cm and is roughly 20cm tall. It weighs 340g which is less than an iPad air which weighs in at 478g.

The display comes out as 323ppi(pixels per image). That's less than a Galaxy S5's ppi (432ppi). This doesn't mean it has a bad screen, it actually looks quite nice.

Software

The Nexus comes installed with Android Jelly Bean 4.2 but I updated it to Android Jelly Bean 4.3.2. The software runs clean and smoothly and I haven't had any freezes(yet)and nothing takes ages to load.

Hardware

As I said before, It only has a 1.2mp front facing camera. There is quite a bit of space between the actual screen and the end of the device(bezel). The was actually a good call by Google and Asus because if the screen were to reach out to the edge, it would have to be taller, taking away the hand friendliness of it. 

Battery Life

The nexus possesses a 4,325 mAH battery which can provide over 10 hours of battery life. If your not getting the most out of your battery life, then you should go into settings>battery and check what's using up all your battery.

Storage

The nexus is fixed with a storage limit of 32gb so cannot extend the storage with a micro SD card.

Overall Conclusion

If you are looking for a tablet, I would have to say this is one of the best. From £199 it's more than half the price of an iPad and less than an iPad mini. If you don't like the look of android or the keyboard or anything like that, there are plenty of overlays on the play store that can make it look like other software systems.

Google Nexus 7

I have just acquired a new Google Nexus 7. I will test it out and review for all you people and tell you my thoughts on the nexus and spill the beans on all the tips and tricks. If anyone wants to know any thing specific just tell me in the comments. Depending on how much I discover about it, I may or may not review it tomorrow.

Talk to all of you tomorrow!

Bye!

Facebook planning to share the nearby friends feature with advertisers!

Photo from "thenextweb.com"

Facebook is pitching the tool as a valuable new feature for users. It sends occasional notifications informing them how often friends, who've also agreed to be seen, are in the locale.

It will also follow users on their travels, allowing friends to pitch in with suggestions or recommendations wherever they roam around the world.

Knowing the end goal may be (or always was?) geared towards targeted advertisements may see some users change their views on the feature.

Will you be switching on Nearby Friends when it hits your smartphone?


P.S
Sorry for the white highlight - I wrote this on word first and it won't go away 

Samasung Galaxy S5

Samsung is known for piling on the features, but for the Galaxy S5 the company has taken a more measured approach. Yes, the built-in heart rate sensor and fingerprint reader are a bit gimmicky. But what wins evryone over are the S5's awesome display, enhanced camera and water-resistant chassis. Add it all up, and it's easy to see why Samsung's latest smartphone is also its greatest.

Once again, Samsung's flagship smartphone comes wrapped in a plastic chassis rather than metal, but that doesn't mean the Galaxy S5 is unattractive. In fact, the S5 looks and feels better than its predecessor, thanks to its textured rear panel. Sporting a soft-touch dimpled pattern, the S5's removable back is a significant improvement over the Galaxy S4's glossy rear. The S5's new backing pairs nicely with the subtle dot matrix-like styling found on the phone's face.




While Samsung needed to make a special active version of the Galaxy S4 to offer resistance to water, the S5 has that goodness baked in. With its IP rating of 67, this device can withstand a depth of 1 meter for 30 minutes. While you can't go swimming with the S5 like the Sony Xperia Z1s, which lets you take pictures underwater, Samsung's handset can survive accidental splashes.Following the lead of the iPhone 5s, the Galaxy S5 integrates a fingerprint reader into its home button for unlocking the device and signing into our Samsung account. However, unlike Apple's implementation, you can also use the sensor for making payments via PayPal. (You can't use your fingerprint to log in to websites.)

In order to make its smartphones feel more intuitive to operate, Samsung applied a makeover to its TouchWiz interface, which runs atop Android 4.4.2 on the Galaxy S5. For example, the Settings menu has a flat look with colorful circles representing the options. The notification drawer also sports circular buttons, with 10 available quick-setting shortcuts, and 10 more if you enter grid view.


The S5's lock screen makes the camera shortcut larger to make it easier to launch the camera. However, Samsung took away the ability to use shortcuts to other apps from the lock screen.


I hope you enjoyed this or found it useful.

Stick around because I'm going to be posting more. 

If you want to you can leave a comment or like this post!You can also comment on anything you want me to have a look at or review or talk about in detail or in general and I'll do my best to do whatever you wanted me to do.



Bye!


P.S
Can you read the colour I write in? If not which colour should I start writing in? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below! ;)

Apple's "transparent" phone

First off, yes this is real(not that picture, the iPhone 6), Apple are producing a new "transparent" phone. It's been said that this will help while texting while walking or when you're on the move while on facebook or twitter or instagram!;) 

There no need to be a rocket scientist to understand how this works. The back facing camera will give a video feed as to what's in front of you and display in the background of the screen. This doesn't mean you won't be bumping into strangers while on the move:). If you have an android device I have heard that there a certain apps already that allow the same feature of the iPhone 6, so you won't be missing out :D

Even though it’s far away, there are still gentle trickles of information coming through every couple of days. It’s building up a pretty interesting picture and means there will be a good prediction of what Apple will be launching later in the year. One thing that we definitely know of is that it will have a bigger screen as the Samsung S4 mini and the S4 and S5 are alot bigger that Apple's current 5S. 

Kuo has published a product roadmap and note to investors based on reasearch into the Asian supply network, revealing the Apple iPhone 6 will be launched late in the third quarter of 2014 as a 4.7-inch model with an "all-new" design. This means bigger screens! This handset will have a 1334x750 pixel resolution at 326 pixels-per-inch (ppi), according to the report. Meanwhile, a larger 5.5-inch variant will arrive in late Q4 with a full HD 1080p resolution at 401ppi. Both devices will feature Apple's A8 processor with 1GB of RAM meaning the phone will be fast and the display tech will give better pictures coulour and faster operations (LTPS LCD). Touch ID Home keys will also be installed so they will be keeping the finger scanner on the new phone along with optical image stabilisation (OIS) for the camera hardware.

So far this can give a good prediction of what can be expected of the iPhone 6, or one of its rumoured names, the iPhone air. 


I hope you enjoyed this or found it useful.

Stick around because I'm going to be posting more. 

If you want to you can leave a comment or like this post!You can also comment on anything you want me to have a look at or review or talk about in detail or in general and I'll do my best to do whatever you wanted me to do.



Bye!