Reviews and Articles

It seems like we've been  waiting forever  for the official  Samsung Galaxy Nexus  desktop dock to arrive, and when we saw it finally appear in stock we had to grab one. It came in today, so that means it's review time!  When you open the package (which was just a brown cardboard box, nothing fancy here), you notice that it's pretty heavy. It's not ridiculously heavy, but it weighs about twice as much as the phone. Combine that with the rubber base plate, and it's not going to slide around from the weight of a cable. It's pretty sturdy. It's plastic, of course, but it's hard coated plastic and feels very nice. I almost don't want to say this, but it feels nicer than the plastic the phone itself is made out of. It's a solid grayish-black that matches the color of the GNex itself. On appearance, it gets high marks. The reason we all have been wanting this one is because of the pogo pins. There's three of them, and they line up with the...

If you want Android Ice Cream Sandwich on your 2011 Xperia smartphone rightaway and you don’t want to wait for the final version to drop, you’re in luck. Sony has decided to release the beta version of the Ice Cream Sandwich ROM for its 2011 Xperia smartphones today. But because it is an early version of upcoming update – you can expect certain features to be broken or missing at this stage. While features such as call radios and the FM radio are available, WiFi and Bluetooth aren’t and Google apps such as Gmail and Maps aren’t available with this release. The Ice Cream Sandwich beta ROM is recommended for advanced developers to install due to the complexity required to do so, and the instability of the software. So those of you who can deal with the shortcomings of a beta ROM and want to go through the hassle of the manual installation, hit the source link below for the files and instructions on how to do so. Let us know how it goes!

[ Updated : February 21st] The year 2011 was all about “dual core”, becoming the standard for high-end smartphones. And we just witnessed what superphones like the Samsung Galaxy S II, DROID RAZR MAXX, and others are capable of. These phones are five times more powerful than anything released last year, and for this upcoming generation of devices, even more. So, what next? This year, chip-makers have come forth with quad core processors supporting mobile multitasking comparable to the performance of a desktop computer of a few years ago, powered by Tegra 3 SoC’s and TI’s OMAP equivalent. More cores equal more power and a faster smartphone; certainly they are likely to offer increased power savings and a performance increase in the range of 300-500%. And, they actually have power saving features embedded in them too. NVIDIA Tegra Product Roadmap And the players include HTC, Motorola, Sony, Samsung, LG, and Meizu. We will look at the devices they are bringing to market o...

Unwrapping a new Ice Cream Sandwich: Android 4.0 reviewed Google's Android 4, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), debuts later this month on the much-anticipated Galaxy Nexus smartphone. This major new version of Android includes a redesigned user interface that promises a uniform experience across tablet and smartphone form factors, and it delivers new features and a wide range of improvements across the core application stack. We already gave you a look at the Galaxy Nexus earlier this month in a hands-on review of the hardware. Now it's time to take a close look at the operating system and the ICS user experience. User interface The look and feel of the new interface is largely inherited from Honeycomb, the previous tablet variant of Android. ICS carries over Honeycomb's Tron-inspired "holographic" visual style, but the design has been refined to work well on multiple screen sizes. The Android 4 design is functional rather than expressive....