Sexy Gadgets, Cool Gadgets and Concept Gadgets

Unlike the iPad and Samsung-dominated 10-inch universe, the 7-inch market is still anyone’s game. The ViewPad 7x comes loaded with Android Honeycomb and there are little design tricks that give it more of a personality than many 7-inch rivals. The embossed casing at first looks black, but catching the light reveals it to be a deep red. Coupled with the red band that outlines the tablet, the overall effect is more attractive than the average black slate. Read the rest of this entry »

New tablets have to do a lot to stand out in today’s increasingly Android-saturated marketplace. We had high hopes for the first tablet from smartphone maestro, HTC, but the Flyer’s steep price and outdated operating system (OS) make it hard to recommend.

The major problem is that the Flyer runs Android 2.3, which has now been replaced by Android 3.0 (dubbed ‘Honeycomb’). The latter offers great features and a slick interface designed specifically for tablets, and returning to 2.3 feels like taking a step back in time. Read the rest of this entry »

The Evo 3D is a gorgeous phone. Like its Evo 4G sibling, it’s black with blood-red detailing. It feels solid but not bulky, with a nice, textured rubber backing and a slim shape that feels great to hold.

Naturally, two of its most important features are its 3D display and 3D image capture. The phone uses parallax barriers to show 3D images and video, with no need for clunky 3D glasses. The 4.3-inch qHD (Quarter High Definition) 960-by-540-pixel screen looks terrific in 2D—and pretty good in 3D. (The 3D images aren’t flying in your face; you seem to peer into the phone as if into a diorama.) Read the rest of this entry »

Though the iPhone 4S might not be the most exciting iPhone to appear, an improved camera, a faster processor, and the addition of the Siri personal assistant make it a powerful smartphone. If you are upgrading from a 3G or a 3GS, you FU see a huge difference. But if you have an iPhone 4, you may want to wait for the next upgrade. The phone’s iOS still has a few irksome shortcomings, and I wasn’t thrilled by the call quality; otherwise, the iPhone 4S impresses. Read the rest of this entry »

It has taken Sony close to two years to enter the tablet market. In an excellent bid to stand out in the crowd, Sony has given its tablet a refreshing and aesthetic design. Described as an “ergonomic innovation”, the design consists of an unusual curve-wedge shape, rather like a single sheet of black plastic bent to make the ends meet. The gorgeous looks give the impression that the Tablet S is a heavy device. But at 598 gm, it is more than comfortable to lug around. The controls, including on/off, volume, 3.5mm jack, memory card slot and a mini USB port, are on the side while the charging jack lies at the bottom. Read the rest of this entry »

HTC has a reputation for unusual monikers – previous handsets include the WildFire, Incredible and ChaCha. However, the Titan is actually a suitable name for this gargantuan smartphone, leaving little to the imagination.

The firm, rounded body is 12mm thick, which gives it more bulk than some laptops we’ve seen, and the 160g weight is right at the top end for modern smartphones.

If you enjoy surfing the web or watching movies on your phone, you’ll probably tolerate the bulky size for the crisp and colorful 4.7-inch screen.

It isn’t quite as mesmerizing as the Samsung Galaxy S2’s Super-AMOLED display, but images look realistic and the extra space is perfect for browsing. Read the rest of this entry »

The Motorola Fire has a 2.8-inch capacitive display on which you can navigate with your fingers, as well as a physical QWERTY keypad on which you can type. It may have a regular 600 MHz processor and 256 MB RAM, but it scores over some of the other Androids since it sports the latest version of the operating system, Android v2.3. Capable of handling emails, web browsing, applications and multimedia with ease, it comes with a 3.15 MP camera and ability to record 480P videos at 24 frames per second. Predictive text input, document viewer, digital compass, etc., are other usual options. This phone packs in a 1420 mAh battery.

The Lenovo IdeaCentre B520 not only looks good sitting on your desk with its frameless 23-inch screen, but the speakers at the bottom of the monitor give an ubercool appearance that one immediately falls in love with. Having the USB port on the side means that one does not have to turn the machine to access it. Since you can get it with a Blu-ray drive, and also because it has HDMI and Component ports, you can actually replace your TV with this desktop. However, a wireless keyboard and mouse are accessories that you have to add. You can also opt to have it upgraded to a touchscreen.

This instant plug-and-play media player with an HDMI cable enables watching 1080P HD content on a big screen without so much as a hiccup. Capable of playing just about any and every format, the Amkette Flash TV HD uses advanced video decoding technology, resulting in impressive movie clarity and DTS/Dolby format sound. Its video preview mode, automatic scanning through attached hard disk drive and automatic selection of the best display type supported by TV and upscaling media are some of its capabilities. Compact, circular shaped, this media hub goes well with most of TV setups.

LG has launched the world’s first single lens Full HD 3D projector targeted at hardcore movie and gaming enthusiasts. It displays 3D content in Full HD resolution and has a 120Hz True Motion technology for clear and smooth movement. It uses two projectors combined with one lens for perfect brightness and contrast ratio. It also has a 3D auto picture calibration that eliminates the need of manual alignment. Utilizing the same polarized technology of its 3D TVs and 3D laptops, it gives flicker-free 3D experience. With 2500 lumens, it has a contrast ratio of 30000:1.

Having made listening to music a very personal activity with its Walkman a generation ago, Sony has now come up with a personal video viewer. It is a head mounted device that allows the user to view 3D and other videos in an immersive theatre-like experience. Its dual OLED displays and the 5.1 channel audio transports you to a theatre even as you sit in a train or a bus. It provides the illusion of a 150-inch screen right in front of your eyes. So while you breathe in one world, you could be on an adventure in another.

After the success of the Optimus One, LG has come up with two new Androids phones, of which the Optimus Net is the better one. Even though the high-end Optimus devices ran on the old Android v2.2, the Net proudly runs on Gingerbread. Moving ahead from a 600 MHz processor, this one has an 800 MHz processor and 512 MB RAM. These make this phone significantly better than the ones available in the market in this price bracket. Also, the device looks stylish with its curved edges, this designing extending to below the display near the physical keys as well. Multimedia features include a 3.15 MP camera, FM radio, YouTube, and Google Talk.

Asus’ U36JC is the only laptop here to rely on a pre-Sandy Bridge processor. While the Core i5-460M runs at a seemingly pacey 2.53GHz, it’s missing the generational speed boost and efficiency enhancements that every other machine here benefits from.

With older versions of Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost, to name but two, performance isn’t as it should the these days. The U36JC scored a mere 0.49 in our benchmarks, which is this month’s lowest score by some distance.

The cash saved by choosing a last-gen chip has at least left room for discrete graphics. Nvidia’s GeForce 310M averaged 36fps in our Low quality Crysis test, slightly higher than laptops with Intel’s integrated graphics. It isn’t this month’s best gaming option – the Dell XPS 15г easily wins that honor – but it’s an improvement on many. Read the rest of this entry »

A portable projector isn’t something most of us would carry around—but ask a corporate professional what it means to him and you will admire its utility. The Portronics Smart Projector can easily squeeze into the corner of the laptop bag. It has the controls and navigation pad on the top and comes with a tiny but sturdy tripod. The Android-run device can play files in various formats, including PowerPoint, PDF, Word and Excel. We also played movies and songs in most of the formats. With 30 lumen brightness, it produced acceptably sharp projection. The projection ranges from a minimum of 7 inches to a maximum of 80 inches. Also, it can also be used for browsing the web by connecting over Wi-Fi, only make sure the language option is correct. The 1.5 W inbuilt speaker had enough audio power for presentations in a small room without the need for additional speakers. The battery was good enough to last 70 minutes on a single charge. The gadget comes with 8 GB internal memory and supports a 1B GB memory card.

Like Apple, Philips too believes in tweaking its designs. Its RaGa, the latest from the GoGear lineup, does not, however, look as good as its predecessors. Indeed, the square shape with striking blue bezel gives it a cheap look. The black front is dominated by the display along with the controls. Songs can be transferred by a simple drag-and-drop action. Philips Songbird syncs the music. The audio quality is loud and clear though there’s nothing extraordinary to report. But when we used better quality headsets instead of the pack regulars, there was a noticeable difference. The equalizer comes with some predefined modes, but we loved the custom settings option. Another usual in GoGear is the FM radio. FM recording, a feature commonly seen in cell phones, is present on this music player as well. Read the rest of this entry »

We talk about long-life laptops throughout this Libs, but Panasonic’s Toughbooks meet that criterion lit more ways than one. Put simply, the semi-ruggedized CF-53 is the laptop equivalent of an army all-terrain vehicle: a 54mm magnesium-thickened chassis weighing 2.6kg; rubber seals over all interfaces; and a hard disk mounted in shock-absorbing polymers. You can drop it from up to 76cm and splash water over the keyboard, safe in the knowledge the Toughbook won’t even blink. Read the rest of this entry »

The Toshiba Satellite R830-143 is one of the cheaper laptops here at only £729, which makes it all the more remarkable that it boasts the second-best battery life. It uses a 5,800mAh battery, larger than most, which allowed it to run for a minute over ten hours in our light-use test. Only the Panasonic can top this out of the box.

This isn’t the only test in which the Toshiba excelled: a real-world benchmark score of 0.6R is beaten only by the Core i7-roting Dell XPS 1.17, and its integrated graphics arc no weaker than the majority here. This is all due to the components, which include Intel’s 2.3GHz Core 15-241OM, 6GB of DDR3 RAM, a DVD writer and a 640GB hard disk.

So far, so impressive, but this isn’t the whole picture. Away from the internals things look a lot less high-end. The 13.3in 1,366 x 768 screen is the first sign of budget constraints: its 245cd/nr brightness and 205:1 contrast ratio mean it’s among this month’s most lifeless panels, and an average Delta E of 11.1 is one of the weakest, too.

Dome IP cameras are great for showing; the bigger picture, but most are too big for discreet surveillance. By contrast, the Axis M30I4 is the very model of discretion: this little dome camera is designed to fit snugly into a drop-ceiling recess, where it peeks out a mere 30mm.

The camera mount is only 90mm wide and is fitted in an 80mm-deep steel tube, with three spring-loaded arms to hold it firmly in place. The M3014 targets video surveillance only, so it has no built-in microphone or sockets to add external speakers. Read the rest of this entry »

Better known for its range of graphics tablets, Wacom’s latest accessory brings stylus control to Apple’s iPad. There’s no technology at work: this is a simple capacitive stylus and while the box proclaims that it’s “for iPad”, it will work with any tablet with a capacitive screen. It feels beautifully made: the matte-finish metal sits nicely in the hand, and there’s just enough heft to make for comfortable writing and drawing. The soft replaceable nib felt a little too squidgy at first, but we were soon happily scribing notes in Wacom’s Bamboo notepad app for iPad, as well as exploring our creative side in ArtRage. The glaring issue is the price: at £Z5, you’re paying a premium for the logo and sleek finish, when a cheaper capacitive stylus may well suffice.

Intel has been talking up its potential in me tablet market, but after taking so long to dive in it has a lot of ground to make up. That’s what Oak Trail is tor: the Atom processor refresh lies at the heart of Intel’s tablet assault, and it’s arrived in a tank of a tablet.

We shouldn’t be surprised it’s so hefty: the GL900 is from Motion Computing, so it’s designed for more strenuous environments than the iPad. It has a 10.1in 1,366 x 768 panel covered by Gorilla Glass, while Motion claims its internal frame should withstand a fall from “the hack of a track” (or less dramatically, 4ft). It’s sealed and tested to MIS, STD-810Gand 1P52 specifications, so you don’t have to worry about moisture and dirt in the held.

It’s understandably heavier than other tablets: its 1 kg weight is՝ a good 400g more than the iPad 2. That makes it a chore to hold in one hand, but it’s well balanced and comes with both a touch interface and a stylus. The latter is stored in a slot on the edge, and is hooked to the tablet by a cord – useful when you drop it, not so useful dangling loosely when the pen is stowed. Read the rest of this entry »