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- iPad UK price: prepare for the Apple tax
- Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: overall verdict
- Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: design and build
- Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: user interface
- Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: screen and media
- FEAR 3 confirmed, Hollywood horror maestro onboard
- iPhone OS 4.0 iChat video conferencing support spotted?
- Nokia Ovi Maps ad shows true peril of getting lost: video
- Twitter web interface redesign revealed
- General Election 2010: who should gadget fans be voting for?
| iPad UK price: prepare for the Apple tax Posted: 09 Apr 2010 10:00 AM PDT
Is this the iPad UK price you’ve been hoping for? Not quite: unless Apple pulls a wild card, you can expect something of an iPad UK price levy when it lands at the end of the month.
To work out what Apple may charge, we’ve compared the prices of the base models of Apple’s current gadgets on sale within Apple’s US online store with those on the UK store today. By using today’s exchange rates and removing VAT from UK prices (Apple’s US prices don’t include the equivalent sales tax, since it varies from state to state), we’ve worked out the potential iPad UK price based on average and modal (most common) percentage difference. iPad UK price leaked by Play.com? We haven’t included the iPhone in our calculations, since it’s heavily subsidised by the networks it’s sold on, both here and in the US. Considering the iPad is sold contract-free and completely unlocked, it’s not a fair comparison. Check out the numbers below for Apple’s entire product range. They make for interesting reading and not just for those eying up the iPad UK price. Sneak a peek at those Mac Mini and Apple TV price differences! iMac 21.5-inch, 3.06GHz MacBook Pro 15-inch, 2.53GHz MacBook Air 1.86GHz MacBook 2.26GHz, 250GB Mac Mini 2.26GHz, 160GB iPod touch 32GB third gen iPod nano 5G 8GB iPod shuffle 2GB Apple TV 160GB To figure out Apple’s likely iPad UK price, we’ve taken the average price increase for the UK across the entire store, which is 6.9% before VAT, resulting in a final iPad UK price for the base 16GB Wi-Fi model of £407. The same model costs $499 in the US in states where gadget fiends pay no sales tax, such as Oregon: that’s £324.65 at current exchange rates or a whopping £82 less. Of course, that doesn’t mean a great deal since the bizarre Apple TV pricing introduces a huge discrepancy. If we take a modal figure of 2.5 percent, though, the iPad UK price ends up being £390 including VAT, an effective increase of £65 over the US model, but easily falling within netbook territory, and letting Apple tackle the likes of the Eee PC and MSI Wind head on with the iPad. So there you have it: we expect Apple to charge close to £400 on launch day at the end of April. We await Apple’s official confirmation of the iPad UK price with baited breath, alongside a firm date for availability too. Out April | £TBC | Apple Related posts:
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| Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: overall verdict Posted: 09 Apr 2010 09:00 AM PDT The Sony Ericsson Xperia has the largest screen of any Android phone we’ve reviewed – ever. Does it turn this phone into a movie-watching, web-browsing phenomenon though? Read our Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review to find out. Read the rest of our Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: user interface With a display that big, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 never had a hope of being tiny – but it is quite slim and very sleek. We found that it was happy to snuggle away in our pockets without making its presence felt more than with any other sizeable smartphone. The Xperia X10’s screen doesn’t used AMOLED technology like the HTC Desire, but it is a smidge bigger and offers great brightness and contrast once you juice its brightness up a notch within the Settings menu. Grab a few compatible H.264 videos and you’ll be in portable cinema heaven. It can’t quite compete with the best Androids on the operating system front though. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 uses a customised version of Android 1.6, and although Sony Ericsson says it’ll get an update, we’re not exactly sure when. Android 2.1 lets you sign into multiple email accounts using the one inbox, has more home screens and an improved phone book – amongst a host of other bonuses. It’s a pity the X10 is living in the past. Thanks to the X10’s custom interface it doesn’t show its creaky bits on the outside. It revolves around the Timescape and Mediascape screens, which offer very pretty ways to get access to your social networking updates and media files. They act much like separate apps, taking you away from the home screen to show you their wares. Animated and very slick, they’re great for showing off to your mates, but after a few days we left pining after the pleasures of the HTC Desire’s simpler HTC Sense widgets. Still, Mediascape does rock and has few comparable built-in rivals in Android phones. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10’s media skills carry on with its camera. With an eye-watering 8.1 megapixels on show – more than any other Android seen in the UK so far – you can produce some fab photos. It needs about 20cm distance to focus on an object unless you enable the advanced macro mode, but the levels of detail you can achieve with a steady hand are very impressive. There’s a dedicated camera button, but you can use touch focus if you’d prefer, which lets you tap anything not the touchscreen to focus-in on it. In general operation though, the Xperia X10 doesn’t feel quite as slick as we’d hope considering there’s a 1GHz Snapdragon purring away within it. It has a few benefits over the HTC Desire, like the super-powered snapper and slightly larger screen, but our heart still belongs to HTC. Read the rest of our Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: user interface Related posts:
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| Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: design and build Posted: 09 Apr 2010 08:59 AM PDT The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is big, black and not-at-all bad. But does its design make it feel even more cumbersome than its 4-inch screen suggests? Find out in our Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: design and build. Read the rest of our Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: overall verdict With that beast of a screen, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 was always going to have some heft to it. It’s even bigger than the 3.7-inch monster on the HTC Desire. However, thanks to its relatively skinny 11mm thickness, it’ll fit into a normal-sized pocket without seeming that much bigger than any other big-screened smartphone. The Xperia X10 opts for simple ergonomics to make the phone feel like it belongs in your hand. The front of the phone is completely flat – not a rounded edge to be seen – but the back is a different story. A flattened oval, the back is as smooth as a newborn’s posterior, the soft touch finish making it feel that bit more comfortable within your grip. Unlike some less style conscious Android phones like the T-Mobile Pulse, the Xperia X10 takes a minimalist approach to its sides. The only buttons that feature are camera and volume controls. The rest – the USB socket, headphone jack and power button – sit on the top of the X10, but don’t spoil its simple look. The Xperia X10’s sleek lines are given a helping hand by the full-back battery cover, which means the only join lines are around the silver strip that runs around the phone’s sides. Unlike some other designer battery covers, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10’s cover is dead simple to remove – there’s a discreet gap at the bottom to get your fingernail under. Immaculately designed, but does it affect the usability factor? Compared to the HTC Desire, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10’s face buttons can feel a little low down for comfort. It’s all in favour of the stark look Sony Ericsson has gone for, but we think that’s one of the X10’s most “acquired taste” features. For all its emphasis on the lighter side of life, with its focus on social networking and multimedia, the Xperia X10 borrows a design seed ow two from the Xperia X1 and Xperia X2. These feel like slightly serious, stuffy phones to use as inspiration now that everyone and his daughter is cottoning on to quite how good Android phones can be. Still, while the Xperia X10 doesn’t look quite as friendly as the HTC Desire or Legend, it’s still slick and well-designed. And since when hasn’t a glossy black and silver combo been sexy? Read the rest of our Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: overall verdict Related posts:
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| Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: user interface Posted: 09 Apr 2010 08:58 AM PDT On top of the Android 1.6 operating system, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 uses a custom UX interface, starring the Timescape and Mediascape media and social networking browsers. They help you navigate around the phone’s contents, but are they up to the task? Read our Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 user interface review to find out. Read the rest of out Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: overall verdict Timescape is the star of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10’s social networking show. It lets you view your emails and updates from Twitter, Facebook and Myspace as a single stream, all with a simple entry of your login details for each. Timescape also shows you separate streams for all of those, plus text messages and calls with a quick left or right swipe. There’s also a Timescape widget that shows you the latest update, but if you want to flick through everything that’s happened on the social networking scene in the last few hours, you’ll have to delve into the Timescape app, It doesn’t let you browse updates right from your Xperia X10’s home screen though, unfortunately. Mediascape dumps the idea of attempting to fit its multimedia skills into a widget. You can place a shortcut on your Xperia X10’s home screen, but to get access to Mediascape’s media-playing functions, you have to head into its full app. As these two key UX interface experiences are more like separate apps than core parts of the Xperia X10, much of the phone’s interface feels like vanilla Android. It’s not such a bad thing though – glide your finger up the screen to pull the app menu up, or swipe sideways to switch between the three home screens. Yep, unlike the HTC Desire with its five home screens, the Xperia X10 only has three. Head into the Mediascape and Timescape apps and you’re struck by how swish they are. Slick animations and undulating backdrops are the order of the day. Positively laden with cherries-on-top, both of the Xperia X10’s ’scapes make a great impression, but are too many sweet things bad for you? After a while, you start wishing these apps, especially Timescape, would drop their glitzy looks in favour of something a bit more practical – like the HTC Desire’s Friend Stream, which can sit on your home screen, is ultra-quick and looks great without resorting to anything remotely flashy. Ultimately, like wearing stilettos or worrying about whether there’s enough gel in your hair, an obsession with looking cool slows the Xperia X10 down. And you don’t opt for a phone with a 1GHz Snapdragon under the bonnet if you want to be slowed down. Read the rest of out Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: overall verdict Related posts:
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| Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: screen and media Posted: 09 Apr 2010 08:57 AM PDT Take a glance at the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 and you can see its key feature from a mile off – it has a whacking great big 4-inch screen. What can it do with it though? Find out in our Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 screen and media skills review. Read the rest of our Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: overall verdict This year, the must-have tech on the screen front is AMOLED, offering great brightness and colour reproduction. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 doesn’t have this, but it still looks ace. Just like any great TV, the blacks are deep black and the whites are bright white – get this right everything in-between tends to fall into place. The Xperia X10’s standard brightness setting is a bit dim for our liking – no doubt to keep the battery life riding high – but crank it up and the X10 shows its true colours. Quite literally. Video looks great on the X10, and the extra 0.3 inches you get against the HTC Desire is a fair trade-off for dropping the AMOLED display. Unless you delve deep into the Android Market, you’ll be reliant on the Mediascape app for your video-watching needs. This splits your Xperia X10’s media into videos, music and photos. The first screen of each shows you your favourites and recently-opened files, but hardcore media fans will spend more time on the alphabetised library screen. You can navigate quickly through the alphabet with the letter list than runs down the right hand-side of the screen, or just flick down the list manually. It’s a lot better than the media player that features in most Android phones, almost doing justice to the fab 4-inch screen. What’s slightly disappointing is that the Xperia X10 doesn’t offer any more file type support than your average Android. It can handle H.264 and WMV videos, but not much else. We couldn’t get a 720p file to even play and there’s no Divx or Xvid support, even though they’re still massively popular. You can fill in some of these playback gaps with apps from the Android market, but that would be without the benefits of Mediascape’s nifty navigation. The Xperia X10 fares better on the music front with MP3, WMA and AAC+ support, but that’s more because music codecs are more consolidated than movie ones. Even so, these drawbacks only put the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 in the same boat as the other top Android phones. Fingers crossed for a movie-boosting software update. The Xperia X10 is heading towards mobile movie nirvana, but it’s not quite there yet. Read the rest of our Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 review: overall verdict Related posts:
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| FEAR 3 confirmed, Hollywood horror maestro onboard Posted: 09 Apr 2010 08:00 AM PDT
Warner Bros has announced that FEAR 3 is in the works. It’s being developed by the team behind the first FEAR game, Day 1 Studios, and sees super solider Point Man teaming up with his telekinetic, psychotic brother Paxton. In FEAR 3 single player or co-op mode, the storyline will see you torn between Point Man’s FEAR squad allies and his supernatural, twisted mother Alma that they’re bent on destroying once and for all. FEAR 2 to advertise on animals What’s really piqued our interest with FEAR 3 though is the fact that John Carpenter is advising on in-game cinematics. Carpenter knows how to ramp up the creepiness, as he did with the Halloween series (Well, the first few anyway), but also how to shock: see the graphic murder of a schoolgirl in Assault On Precinct 13. Knowing he’s onboard for the FEAR 3 cut scenes should mean we’re in for a roller coaster ride. FEAR 3 is due out in the Autumn on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, but you can get a glimpse of the (live action) trailer below. Out 2010 | £TBC | FEAR 3 Related posts:
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| iPhone OS 4.0 iChat video conferencing support spotted? Posted: 09 Apr 2010 07:00 AM PDT
An iPhone 4.0 video revealed earlier this week allegedly shows a bezel with space for a front-facing camera, now an iChat process has been spotted buzzing away in the background on an iPhone running iPhone OS 4.0. Using an app called iStat which reveals the processes running on the iPhone 3GS, a TUAW reader spotted a process called iChatAgent working on his phone running iPhone OS 4.0 beta. Video chat on mobiles is usually a big battery drain but now Apple has added multitasking to iPhone OS 4, adding iChat video conferencing support with the iPhone 4.0 could be possible. Video calls have been around for ages. Do you think Apple can make them popular with the combo of an iPhone 4.0 with a front-facing camera and iPhone OS 4? Due TBC | £TBC | Apple (via TUAW) Related posts:
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| Nokia Ovi Maps ad shows true peril of getting lost: video Posted: 09 Apr 2010 06:30 AM PDT
Goodness, Nokia, we had no idea you had such a chillingly dark sense of humour. Making Nokia Ovi Maps turn by turn navigation free was a smart enough move in itself, but promoting it with this surreal advert? Even savvier. Read our Nokia Ovi Maps 3.03 review now We won’t give away any more spoilers, but watch the video below, and if you’ve got a Symbian S60 phone and any sense whatsoever, you’ll install the latest version of Nokia Ovi Maps right away to avoid the same fate. Out TBC | £TBC | Nokia (Via Mobile Industry Review) Related posts:
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| Twitter web interface redesign revealed Posted: 09 Apr 2010 06:00 AM PDT
Bowman's Twitter web interface teaser picture doesn't show the whole of the new Twitter site. It reveals the top corner of a new style Twitter profile. The big news in the first screenshot of the new Twitter web interface is the inclusion of stats. Your Twitter profile will let you know how many days you've been on Twitter, the number of tweets you send on average per day and the percentage of your tweets that are replies. From what we can see from the Twitter screenshot, the menu with options like replies and retweets is also set to be moved to the top of the screen. Lists and a new "Actions" menu are also part of that top bar. Let us know what you think of this first glimpse of the Twitter web interface redesign. Do you use the Twitter web interface to toss out your tweets or are you using a desktop app like Tweetdeck? Related posts:
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| General Election 2010: who should gadget fans be voting for? Posted: 09 Apr 2010 05:30 AM PDT
We've taken a look at the way the party leaders use the web, the technology they’ve got in their political pockets, and their plans for our beloved United Gadgetdom once all the squabbling is over.
Personal tech: In September 2007, Gordon Brown became the first UK Prime Minister to be allowed his own mobile phone. Previous PMs like John Major and Tony Blair had been forbidden their own mobiles while in office for security reasons. The phone is apparently a Nokia as Brown's choice of the classic Nokia ringtone was revealed when his phone rang during last year's Davos conference. He's also talked about using an iPod (which included Leona Lewis and U2 back in 2007). Facebook: Gordon Brown doesn't have an official Facebook page though there are two unofficial Gordon Brown pages that have been created to support him. They have racked up 5421 and 2990 fans respectively while the official Labour Party Facebook page has pulled in a respectable 14,923 fans. Twitter: An unofficial Gordon Brown twitter feed ran until March 2008 and collected 6149 followers. Since then the DowningStreet Twitter feed has been the Prime Minister's Twitter outpost. It's a pretty impersonal feed and updates are now on hold due to General Election 2010 and rules that stop the civil servants who had been updating the feed from continuing. DowningStreet has 479,780 followers and will available to whoever wins the election. YouTube: The Prime Minister hasn't had the best of luck with YouTube in the past. Delivering a message about the MPs' expenses scandals in April last year his stilted movements and odd smile drew plenty of scorn and led to YouTube comments being closed. Gordon Brown hasn't taken to YouTube much since, and the Labour Party Youtube channel predominantly features his speeches and messages from other ministers like Peter Mandelson. Technology policies: Labour promises broadband of 2mbps for 90% of the country by 2017. It also plans to develop a MyGov portal to allow Brits to manage every aspect of their interaction with government. Its contentious plan to add a tax of 50p to all telephone lines to support broadband roll out may return if it wins the election. It developed the Digital Economy Bill and advocates the disconnection of file sharers too.
Personal tech: David Cameron recently bought a Macbook Pro and uses an iMac at home but still drafts speeches by hand. His most used bit of technology is his Blackberry which he apparently uses constantly. His wife Samantha Cameron highlighted her husband’s BlackBerry habit in her recent interview with Trevor Macdonald: "I have to be quite firm about him not fiddling with his Blackberry too much, because it can be, you know, quite annoying." Cameron also has an iPod and famously confessed to loving The Smiths and Billy Bragg, much to their chagrin. Facebook: Cameron doesn't have a personal Facebook page but does have a David Cameron Fan Page with 20,772 fans. The page is written by Conservative Party officials and doesn't reveal much about him. The official Conservatives Facebook page has 34,666 fans. Twitter: David Cameron doesn't have an official Twitter account – an unofficial davidcameron account grabbed 6774 followers before Tory HQ asked for it to be shut down in January last year. Cameron made his feelings about Twitter clear in a radio interview last year when he said: "The trouble with Twitter, the instantness of it – too many twits might make a twat." Quite. The official Conservative Party Twitter has 24,450 followers. YouTube: David Cameron has been filming WebCameron videos throughout his time as Conservative Party leader giving us the opportunity to catch him doing the washing up as well as at campaign events. Samantha has now joined in with the videos as part of her role as the Conservative's "secret weapon". Her first appearance on YouTube was visiting a youth project in Hackney. Technology policies: The Tories promise super-fast broadband of at least 100mbps for the "majority of British households" using telegraph poles and the BT duct network by 2017 and to begin that process by 2012. They also plan to put government spending data and other information onto the web for the public to peruse. They supported the Digital Economy Bill.
Personal tech: Clegg uses a Blackberry as revealed on the 26th October 2009 episode of Christian O'Connell's Absolute Radio show when he told the DJ he'd dropped and broken his phone on the same weekend that his second hand Ford Galaxy conked out. Facebook: Nick Clegg also has a Nick Clegg Facebook fan page but it has some more personal touches than the other leaders’ pages with notes written by him, a profile including favourite music (Johnny Cash and Led Zeppelin, fact fans) and a personally written "About Me" section. Still, he only has 5180 fans. The Liberal Democrats Facebook fan page does a little better with 13,456 fans. Twitter: Nick Clegg has an official Twitter which is written as if posted by him, but admits in the profile section that it is in fact written by his web officer, David Angell. The feed has racked up 11,133 followers but doesn't generally reply to messages preferring instead to broadcast the Lib Dem leader's current activities. YouTube: Nick Clegg is filming video diaries from the General Election 2010 campaign trail including such thrilling occasions as a visit to a cable factory and waiting to do a press conference with Vince Cable. Technology policy: The only one of the three major parties to oppose website blocking and disconnecting file sharers under the Digital Economy Bill, the Liberal Democrats offer only a broad commitment to expanding broadband provision. They also advocate tax breaks for video game companies and hi-tech businesses. Based on their tech savvy and technology manifestos, which party will get your vote in the General Election 2010? Give us a shout in the comments section below. No pressure though, obviously. It’s a secret ballot after all! Related posts:
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General Election 2010 is in full swing but while Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg are talking tough on public spending, crime and tax, what we really want to know is what do they know about tech? What can gadget fans expect if they get the keys to Number 10, and do they even understand the technology they’re legislating on?
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