The process to capture screen shots on Ice Cream Sandwich is easy, simply press and hold the power button and volume down button for a second, a screen shot will be captured and saved to your gallery folder.

Because of the changes that have been made to the format and presenter line up there is a interest in the viewing figures and ratings that the show receives.

Here are the latest The Gadget Show World Tour Viewing figures.
Week 1: 873k
Week 2: 759k
Week 3: 595k
Week 4: 736K

We’ll see how the ratings continue the change through out the series.

Gadget Show Ratings

The Look and Feel of the Phone

The first thing which strikes you about Samsung Galaxy Note is it’s size, it’s massive 5.29″ screen means that the Phone has a huge footprint, certainly much too big for most people to use in a single handed manner, but unlike the smaller LG Optimus 3D the phone feels incredibly light and well balanced. In fact, despite its size, the Galaxy Note feels comfortable in the hand.
The screen on the Note runs at a resolution of 800 by 1280 with a pixel density of 285 pixels per inch, whilst the pixel density is less than that found on the Apple iPhone 4s, It would be unreasonable to expect a screen this size to have a retina level of density and still remain affordable, and it’s fair to say that the screen looks great. Photographs look very crisp on the Galaxy Note although most Android Apps aren’t designed for a screen of this size and streaming video often looks pixelated.
Text is very readable on screen and web pages look gorgeous and are rendered to make the best use of the large screen, in fact beyond a tradition tablet form factor this is the best way to surf the web on a mobile device.
The size of the device opens up a number of possibilities for reading materials that wouldn’t normally be accessible through a mobile phone.
The dual core 1.4 Ghz processor keeps Android moving well, and in general use it’s very rare to notice any slow down, text scrolls around the screen very quickly.

On Screen Reading
The strength of the Galaxy Note and main selling point is its screen, and those who consume a lot of information will

Reading a Kindle book on the Galaxy Note

appreciate the ease in which text can be read from the device, wether it’s on web pages, emails or Social Media this is the device for those who enjoy reading.
The Amazon Kindle Software is freely available from the Google Play Store and allows you to access your Kindle library from your Galaxy Note and when held side by side next to an Amazon Kindle dedicated E-Book Reader the devices do give similar results, although the back lit screen on the Note can cause eye strain if used for significant lengths of prolonged reading. The Note is ideal for reading your Kindle books on short journeys.
Google have recently launched Google Currents which can be downloaded from the Google Play Store. Google Currents provides you with a selected of customisable on-screen magazine style sites, you can choose favourite sources from a wide selection of well known sites and Currents does the rest. It works in a similar way to Flipboard on iOS, and although is missing the ability to access your social media feeds, it presents information effectively, means that your favourite news is always on hand and you will never need to buy a magazine again.
Whilst these features aren’t unique to the Galaxy Note, the large screen provide a natural home.

Google Currents

The S Pen Stylus
It doesn’t seem long ago since every PDA device came with and was dependant on a stylus, and as technology advanced the dependence on the plastic pen decreased and they all but disappeared from the market. This was generally seen as a good thing as the user experience based on the old style stylus wasn’t a great one.
So it might be seen as a gamble then that to help distinguish the Galaxy Note from the smart phone market Samsung have included stylus functionality through the inclusion of the S Pen.

The S Pen in Action

Sitting securely in its internal holder in the bottom of the Note, the S Pen is certainly a massive step forward over the traditional stylus. The S Pen looks and feels like a normal ink pen, writing and drawing with it is smooth, and thanks to the Wacom digitiser that is built into the Note, it’s pressure sensitive, so the harder you press the darker the lines, just like using a pencil. This means that accurate artistic sketching is possible, perhaps for the first time, on a consumer mobile device.
A number of dedicated S Pen apps are included on the Galaxy Note and the devices text input interface allows handwritten input, which although works remarkably well is slower then typing on a virtual keyboard.
If you are a heavy note taker or like the personalisation that handwritten notes provide then the S Pen might be a big selling point for you.

Mobile Data Functionality

The Samsung Galaxy Note supports 802.11b/g/n wifi networks, and switchover between mobile data networks (eg 3G) and known WiFi networks is automated, transparent and seamless. Some Android phones don’t handle this switch very well, but so far I’ve found the Galaxy Note to cope very well with the switch over

On Three’s One Plan Internet usage is unlimited, and this is when Smart Phones come into their own. If you find yourself away from your home Wifi network you can send pictures, large emails, and upload videos quickly and without having to worry about extra data costs or data caps. In our recent test The Three Data Network has been significantly out performing the Orange Data Network.

The Samsung Galaxy Note is compatible with Three’s HSPA+ network which can produce download speeds of up to 21Mbps, however in practice during our testing we noticed that when using Mobile Data the Galaxy Note consistently under performed.
The following table shows a comparison of network speeds (shown in kbps) from a sample of tests on the Samsung Galaxy Note and the iPhone 4s.

In our on-going speeds tests, when we included all test results the Samsung Galaxy Note has an average down load speed of 2265 kbps compared to the Average download speed of 2433 kbps on the iPhone

The Camera
While its fair to say that because of its size the Samsung Galaxy Note isn’t the natural choice for mobile photographers there is a natural assumption that most phone devices have a decent camera but how does the Note compare to other devices?

The Samsung Galaxy Note comes with two cameras, a rear facing Camera for video conferencing and an 8 Mega pixel front facing camera for photographs, and the results aren’t bad. I’m a big fan of the camera on the iPhone 4S and the Galaxy Note produces different looking photos, but not bad ones. The range of colours appears to be magnified and although this makes good looking images they don’t necessarily reflect the real scene.

The photo on the right was taken by the Samsung Galaxy Note

The enhanced colour in the Galaxy Note’s photos can have significant advantage especially in scenes with already vivid colours, as shown in the next image rich colours look absolutely gorgeous, although as you may notice this appears to be at the expense of fine detail when zoomed in.

Vivid bright colours look fantastic in Photos taken on the Note

Panoramic Photography

A number of photo capture modes are included on the Galaxy Note, of which the most interesting the the panoramic capture mode, unlike on the HTC Sensation XL where you were limited to three consecutive shots to form the scene on the Galaxy Note you can continue to capture images to form the panoramic photo, the results produce spectacularly wide images, although you need to remember that the wider the shot the more curved straight lines will appear. The inclusion of Panoramic picture modes are a fantastic inclusion on modern day camera phones, as these traditionally difficult photos are now easy to produce.

A Panoramic Photo taken on the Galaxy Note

Video Capture

The Samsung Galaxy Note is capable of recording High Definition Video and it does it very well. As shown in the video below Scenes are bright and colourful and thanks to the dual core processor motion remains fluid, some fine detail is missing from the video which means that the quality doesn’t match that of the iPhone but it does look good, certainly good enough for you to use as a permanent video device.

Final Thoughts

This has been a tricky review to write because it’s difficult to apply a label to the Galaxy Note, is it a large phone, or a small tablet device, or both?

On a personal note I have struggled to get along with the Note mainly because of it’s size, so before writing this review I showed it to a number of potential users to gain a wider opinion and the feedback was certainly split.
Generally the men I showed the device to agreed that the Galaxy Note is to large to be used practically as a phone, this included a GP who I assumed would appreciate the handwritten facilities. Whereas the women I showed it to really liked it, and commented that as they normally carry a bag with them the size isn’t a problem and the large screen and stylus brought benefits. Most of the ladies I spoke carry and use a diary or notepad with them anyway, so the Samsung Galaxy Note could replace and improve upon an existing paper solution.
A couple of the people I spoke to commented that if Samsung added a few buttons then the Galaxy Note would become the perfect size for a handheld gaming device.

The Samsung Galaxy Note isn’t for everyone, some won’t like the size, some will love the size and inclusion of the S Pen. The Galaxy Note is being priced at the same level as a high end mobile phone, which given the hardware is impressive, it may also be an ideal second device for some of you.
The Note divided opinion to such an extent that if you get chance to try the Galaxy Note then take it, it’s a little different but you may love it.

Here’s What we know so far about the Samsung Galaxy S3 Specs:

• Samsung’s 1.4GHz Exynos 4 Quad processor
• 1GB of RAM
• 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED Display
• 720p Display
• 8 Mega Pixel Rear Racing Camera
• 1.9 Mega Pixel Front Facing Camera

The Samsung Galaxy S3

The Android powered Samsung Galaxy S3 will come with Ice Cream Sandwich skinned with Samsung’s Touch Whizz interface, and will come supplied with up to 50 gigabytes of Dropbox Storage.

The Samsung Galaxy S3 will also have exclusive Access to the Android version of the incredible Flipboard App

Both LTE and HSPA+ versions of the Samsung Galaxy S3 will be released with the latter being released in May with the 4G version following in Summer.

Three UK have announced that the Samsung Galaxy S3 will be released on their Network for £34 pound a month without paying anything up front.
The One Plan includes:

All-you-can-eat-data, 2,000 minutes, 5,000 Three-to-Three minutes & 5,000 texts

You can register interest at https://www.three.co.uk/Discover/New_Samsung_Galaxy

Three have just released a hands on video of the Samsung Galaxy S3, showing the device in action.
The video is shown below.

A Comparison of Networks

For our initial investigation we decided to compare the Three data network and the Orange data network. To perform the comparison we used 2 popular phones on the networks, an iPhone 4s on Three and a Samsung Galaxy Ace on Orange, both of which can access data at HSPDA rates, although the iPhone does have a higher quoted maximum download speed.
To test the network speeds we used the same app, the respected Speedtest.net, and chose the same server in Leeds on both devices and ran a number of simultaneous tests on the devices from different locations.
This is hardly an exact science but we hoped that the results would prove interesting.

The table below shows the results.

The first thing to note is that both phones connected at usable speeds during each test, and a couple of tests were performed on a fast moving train in the middle of the Lincolnshire\Yorkshire countryside, this is a big step forward from even 5 years ago when connectivity was hit and miss, although its also fair to note that neither phone reached their theoretical maximum speeds.
The results from our testing indicates that generally the iPhone 4s produced the better results especially when it came to upload speeds, which may be of interest to cloud storage users eg dropbox.
There were a couple of results where the iPhone really shone, reaching over 6 mbps, it will be interesting to see how often the device reaches these speeds as we continue our testing.

Updates will be posted on this site.

Starting in 2004, for many years The Gadget Show was THE program to watch for news and reviews about consumer Technology and Gadgets. It’s presenting team of Jason Bradbury, Suzi Perry, Jon Bentley, later joined by Ortis Deley and Pollyanna Woodward, had good chemistry, worked well together and were well liked, particularly the original cast.

A mix of enthusiasm, professional reviews and technology based challenges found The Gadget Show respect in the
technology arena and a huge fan base, as seen by the massive attendances at the Gadget Show Live shows. For 16 series the show went from strength to strength with impressive viewing figures during the shows traditional Monday Evening slot, but then the news broke that series was about to undergo a massive over haul, out went the studio based format, and in came an international road trip format. Bigger news followed that Suzi, Jon & Ortis were no longer involved in the show, and it wasn’t by their choice. The Gadget Show Web Page was flooded with complaints but the decision had been made to radically change the shows format, gone was the Gadget Show and in it’s place was The Gadget Show World Tour, and last night the new format aired for the first time but was it a success?

The first thing to say is that this incarnation of the Gadget Show is very different making it difficult to compare with the traditional format, the lack of studio time makes the show feel more like a documentary rather then a magazine show, a trait that is backed up with a challenge that arcs across the whole episode, in this case to build a robot to compete in the Robot Wrestling Championships, of course being set in Japan there are plenty of tech suppliers to help. The addition of a story line is an interesting one, it gives each episode a purpose but sometimes it came across as being a little forced and was definitely a step away from the relaxed studio atmosphere.

@zoeghdie on Twitter: A bit annoyed at how overly dramatised @thegadgetshow has become! Hmmm… or is it only me?

In between robot building were features on different technology elements, starting tonight with a review if 3D camcorders, fantastic I thought a return to the shows routes but unfortunately there was a twist, the camcorders were to be used to film Poly dressed up as a Manga character complete with up skirt shots. There is no doubt that this will appeal to certain demographics but there is a real danger, as the following Tweets show, that distracting away from the Tech will cheapen the meaningfulness of the review.

@Darrin1066 on Twitter: @TheGadgetShow up skirt video of Polly! What’s that all about, I want to know the best gadgets to buy. Not soft porn and robots!

@richiemortuk on Twitter: Hmmn, dressing @GadgetPolly in skimpy clothes, and getting her to dance whilst filming up her skirt and #thegadgetshow is dead

Another change in shows visual style was the introduction of interview style sections to camera, with each each presenter providing a personal insight into why decisions were made for the task and also their thoughts on the trip as a whole, creating a video diary. Polly and Jason were answering questions from an interviewer but the original questions were edited out making the scene looking a little odd.

@LawTechGadget on Twitter: @thegadgetshow Why did you change the format? @suziperry & ors made it the show it is today. The diary thing is v strange.#thegadgetshow

One opportunity provided in the new format is that presenting the entire episode from a single country allows you to

HatsuneMiku

look at the culture of the country, and this was covered by Polly and Jason exploring a sensational 3D Holographic Japanese pop sensation using the impressive HatsuneMiku voice synthesis software and looking at the worlds most advanced walking robot. This could potentially become a fascinating aspect to the show allowing us to see how different cultures interact with technology in different ways.

But is the show a step in the right direction, or is our beloved Gadget Show a thing of the past? The previous show was so popular that any change in format was going to be difficult to get over with the shows fan base, I don’t think that there’s an argument to say that the show didn’t need a slight re-fresh but this complete over hall might be a step to far. Did the show deserve the massive backlash it got last night, obviously not as it show certainly had its entertaining moments, but there is no doubt that the show desperately missed it’s regular presenting team, and the on-screen chemistry that they had built over the years. There is also some question as to why Pollyanna was chosen as a presenter when she possibly had built the least creditability with the audience, had this been an interim show to cover the space in between series then it would have been received in a much more positive manner but as the main gadget show output it no longer ticks some of the boxes that it used to.

Whilst the majority of Twitter expressed a negative reaction to The Gadget Show World Tour, it did get some positive feedback so I’ll leave you with some more thoughts from Twitter, showing examples of the good, the bad & the ugly

@scottgroovez on Twitter: @TheGadgetShow Oh I shall; missing the banter between the presenters. Look forward to seeing what’s next!@VickyGough1 On Twitter: #thegadgetshow – love love love it.

@fluffyheadorca on Twitter: I won’t be watching @TheGadgetShow until they bring back @OrtisDeley @suziperry @jonbentley90 RT if you agree #showruined #thegadgetshow

@Weezykid On Twitter: I actually prefer the new #thegadgetshow format so far. Not sure about the interview bits but glad its tech centric @TheGadgetShow

@Viva_Vialli on twitter: Very disappointed with #thegadgetshow not the same without the full crew. @JasonBradbury is still “The man” but the gold digger???!!!

@AnnaPhylaxis on Twitter: Very much enjoyed #thegadgetshow tonight. I can say that cos I didn’t make it. Fascinating technology & tech culture.

Update on Viewing Figures
See here for an update on The Gadget Show World Tour Viewing Figures

About the Author
This has been a post by Phil Lane, a self confessed Gadget Addict. To read all his Blog Posts Click Here.

You can follow Phil on Twitter at @GadgetPhil

The Evolution of Mobile Games

Driving the evolution are the latest range of mobile phones and tablet devices. These devices have become an everyday part of our lives and as they have become more powerful the games that they can pay have developed from Snake to full blown 3D action games.
Originally driven by cheap casual games that are easily accessible through integrated on-line market places, mobile gaming has become big business, allowing bedroom developers to rub shoulders with the traditional big players in games development. No longer is there a need to go to a physical store, with digital downloads providing content, mobile gaming has been a key factor in the shift away from buying games on the high street. Compare Modern Combat 3 on the iPad to Battlefield on the Xbox360 the similarities are greater then the differences.

No longer are dedicated gaming devices required to play high quality games, with powerful processors and high resolution screens, mobile devices have become powerful gaming devices in their own right, forget HD TV’s the highest resolution screen that most gamers will be able to play games on will be the Retina display on the new iPad.
With touchscreen devices the way that we interact with games is changing, most phones don’t have physical controls, so games designers are creating touch screen interfaces which introduces a whole new level of direct interaction with games, you can directly control in game action by touching an object, and this has really helped develop a whole market for direct interaction games. Look at the success of Angry Birds, the ability to directly touch and drag an on-screen rope gave the game an extra level of accessibility and took it the mobile world by storm.

Mobile Gaming Challenges

Traditional arcade style games can struggle to work properly on touch screen devices, these style of games work best with physical tactile controllers, e.g. a Joypad, and the developers of some mobile games have tried to compensate for a

The Evolution of Mobile Gaming Phones

lack of physical buttons with virtual on-screen controls with mixed success, it’s fair to say that virtual joypads work better on larger screen mobile devices then cramped small screen mobiles, but all to frequently buttons are missed in the heat of action. Developers have tried several ways to provide physical controls on mobile devices, in 2003 Nokia released the Ngage phone which featured a D-pad and raised numbers which acted as buttons, a strange design and limited catalogue of games resulted in only limited commercial success and last year Sony Released the Experia Play with an Integrated PlayStation style controller to make the handset appeal to gamers. It’s also possible to connect an Xbox 360 controller to Android devices, these are all workable solutions but to be playable across all devices games need to take advantage of the devices strong point and have a touch interface.

PC quality Gaming on Mobile Phones?

There is no doubt that the gap between Mobile and PC gaming is decreasing but what about if you want that proper full on PC gaming Experience? Thanks to the OnLive games streaming service this is also possible on your Mobile Device. OnLive provides cross platform access to AAA PC titles, and this now includes mobile access through Android clients, with an iOS client becoming available at some point in the future. As long as you have a 3Mb internet connection an incredible library of high quality PC gaming is available to you. The service is still young and there are 1 or 2 big titles missing but as OnLive matures the experience and catalogue will continue to improve, PC Gaming can now follow you around, and because it’s a streaming service there isn’t any need for disks or large installs.

Console gaming will always have a place in the home, but as Mobile gaming continues to improve the boundaries between Mobile and large screen gaming will continue to become blurred. The fact that this quality of games are now available on a device that you always have with you is reducing the requirement for turning on your games console.

Appealing to all demographics, mobile games are becoming the staple for gaming, whilst console gaming is slowly becoming the exception.

About the Author

This has been a blog post by John Lane, John has been playing and enjoying video games since 1982. To read all his Blog Posts Click Here.

You can follow John on Twitter at @videogamejohn

The look and feel of the phone.

The first thing that you notice when pick up the HTC Sensation XL is the sheer size of it’s 4.7 inch screen.

If you are used to a smart phone with a more traditional sized screen, eg the 3.5 inch screen of the iPhone 4s, the screen will look huge, and this means that that this is one of the biggest handsets on the market. That said HTC have done a great job of keeping the overall handset size down to a minimum as the screen almost fills the entire of the front of the phone, but many will struggle using the handset with one hand and have to resort to almost tablet like double-handed use.
The HTC Sensation runs at a resolution of 480×800 which is significantly less then the iPhone 4′s Retina display and when looking at photographs the large screen exaggerates the lack of sharpness, however the screen does look better then that of the LG Optimus 3G, and the screen size does bring significant benefits. For those of you into Social Media, the Android versions of Twitter and Facebook look great on the HTC Sensation XL; text is well spaced out and very readable on the large screen, and the web browser renders text excellently, automatically resizing to the most appropriate magnification as you pinch to zoom around the web page.
The large screen on the HTC Sensation is even large enough to make Touch Enabled games on the OnLive service easily playable, allowing top class AAA games titles to be played on the mobile device, the OnLive service is a fantastic facility for smartphones and I’m surprised that mobile networks haven’t started pushing this yet as a selling point.

Dirt 3 by CodeMasters running on the On Live Games Service on the HTC Sensation XL

The HTC Sensation XL runs Android 2.3.5 with HTC Sense version 3.5 and whilst many may be surprised by the phone only having a single core processor, Android runs fairly well on the handset flipping between screens smoothly and quickly, although occasionally lag starts to creep in when you rapidly scroll through graphically intensive pages. The phone has 16gb of storage and this provides plenty of space for your applications, pictures and music, so you shouldn’t get any of the out of memory error messages which seem to plague other Android devices.

The HTC Sensation XL comes with Beats Audio technology and a set of Beats headphones, which given the standalone price of Beats headphones is a nice addition, although the Beats technology only works through the standard audio player so anyone looking to use a downloaded music playing App won’t be able to use Beats. Here’s our review of Beats Audio

Some authority Web sites have questioned why HTC continue to skin Android with Sense but for non-technical users Sense makes Android straight forward to use and provides easy access to Android’s functionality, it also provides a consistant approach to all of HTC’s phones, and in Androids fragmented market this is welcome.
Android has improved significantly since the original HTC Dream (G1), and while iOS may be more polished there are some areas where Android has an advantage. For me the most important of these are Widgets. Widgets are small applications which sit on the Android desktops and are used to present information instantly to the user, for example, the time, the weather, social media updates, or a view of your calendar. If iOS had Androids\Senses AgendaWidget I for one would be much more organised.

Mobile Data Functionality

The HTC Sensation XL supports 802.11b/g/n wifi networks, and switchover between mobile data networks (eg 3G) and known WiFi networks is automated, transparent and seamless. Some Android phones don’t handle this switch very well, but so far I’ve found the Sensation XL to cope very well with network switching

The Three  network has come a long way in recent years, and wherever we tested the phone we got fast HSPDA data speeds, emails were transmitted quickly. Video quality was good on Youtube, without significant buffering, and Synchronisation between the device and Google Accounts were almost real time.

On Three’s One Plan Internet usage is unlimited, and this is when Smart Phones come into their own. If you find yourself away from your home Wifi network you can send pictures, large emails, and upload videos quickly and without having to worry about extra data costs or data caps.

The Camera

The 8 mega pixel camera on the HTC Sensation XL is a mixed bag, it excels at some images and seems to struggle at others, it also has some very interesting features which are worth exploring. I’ll start with camera’s strong points.

I’ve been able to take stunning landscape shots with the HTC Sensation XL which match those taken on the iPhone 4s. There is a nice exaggeration of some hues, as shown in the pictures below. The picture taken on the iPhone is a more realistic representation of the real scene, but on the HTC Sensation XL the slight lightening of the picture and strengthening of the pink colour in the sky makes for a truly beautiful photograph, although possibly not one appreciated by a camera purest.

HTC Sensation XL Example Photo - Click to enlarge

You can clearly see the differences in the 2 shots, taken on the different phones.

iPhone 4S Example Photo - Click to enlarge

Panoramic Photography

One of the most impressive photography features on the HTC Sensation XL is the ability to take Panoramic photos as standard through the default camera app, by stitching together upto 3 consecutive photographs and the results are very good.
When in Panoramic mode you are given on screen markers indicating how far to move the camera between each shot and the software does the rest. The Panoramic mode doesn’t work that well in scenes that lack detail, eg pictures of the sea and sky, but in pictures where there are clear structures the software does a good job of stitching a seamless image.

HTC Sensation XL Panoramic Photo - Click to Enlarge

The above image shows how well the HTC Sensation XL can produce Panoramic Photos. This functionality is missing from iOS devices unless a separate app is purchased, and it really is a nice addition, and along side it is the Action Burst mode.

Action Burst Photography

With Action Burst mode selected when you press the camera shoot button the HTC Sensation XL takes 5 pictures straight after each other, which is useful for capturing action sequences, as shown in the sequence below which shows an owl flying, the results can be impressive, but can also highlight one of the weaknesses of the phones camera.

HTC Sensation XL Action Burst Photo's - Click to Enlarge

The camera on the HTC captures still and distant objects very well, but frequently struggles with fine detail or fast moving shots, as shown in the image below, the ground is captured clearly but the moving squirrel is a little blurred

The Camera on the HTC struggles to capture moving objects - click to enlarge

Video Capture
Video Capture and upload is becoming increasingly more important on mobile phones and the HTC Sensation XL records reasonable quality and sharp videos, however on the highest resolution the captured video is slight jerky, certainly when compared to video recorded on the iPhone 4S. This is probably due to the single core processor in the Sensation XL but it is only really noticeable when you compare it directly with other video. However, if you capture lots of videos, and this is a part of your mobile life, then you might need to look at a different handset.

Final thoughts:
There is no doubt that the HTC Sensation XL is a very good phone, and shows a true return to form by HTC. the large screen and easily readable text make this an ideal phone for those into Social Media and web browsing. HTC Sense makes the phone easy to use and an ideal consumer phone, and with the release of the HTC One series of phones you can pick up the Sensation XL for a very reasonable price.
My only concerns about the phone is for those who really enjoy photography, as I don’t think that the camera or screen are of high enough quality to meet their needs.

Useful Links

• What is Beats Audio?
• How to use your Android Phone as a WiFi Hotspot
• How to Make the Most of your Unlimited Data Plan

It’s fair to say that initially I didn’t get on well with Beats Audio and almost wrote it off, this was purely down to the supplied headphones. The HTC Sensation XL comes supplied with a pair of Beats in-ear bud headphones, and I had a real problem getting them to stay in my ears, the buds seem to be waited at the back so they kept falling out my ears, however, my wife experienced no such problems and found them comfortable and easy to wear. You may have to experiment yourself to see how you get on with them. That said the sound quality from the headphones is superb, I was expecting Beats to just magnify the base, and it does, but it also does a lot more.

The best way I can describe Beats audio is that it’s a form of high definition audio. When listening to music through the the special Beats headphones the track sounds broader with each voice and instrument getting a little more space and clarity, with beats turned off, or when using normal headphones, some sounds may get muffled together, but with Beats turned on you can pick out individual instruments in good detail. I was surprised with how much clearer and enriched the music sounded.

I’m glad I gave Beats a second chance as I almost quickly gave up with the problems I had keeping the buds in my ears. Outside of inclusion in mobile phones Beats headphones are expensive so I’m not sure if it’s for everyone but if you are serious about listening to music then you should check it out.
Beats is much more then a gimmick, it’s really nice to listen to and is definitely a technology to watch out for in the future.

Geocaching can be a great social experience

Caches are all hidden by other players and their location shared through a free membership website, for a long time the requirement of dedicated GPS hardware limited access to the game to keen enthusiasts but with the release of smartphone Apps it’s become more accessible to all.
Logging into the Geocaching App you can instantly see all the caches that have been hidden near you, see a map with directions from your current location to a cache, you can also see the logs of those that have found the cache before you.

When you arrive at the correct coordinates there is still the difficult job of finding the cache, Geocachers are great at hiding caches and the added presence of non-players (known as Muggles) adds difficulty. There is great pride within the Geocaching community of keeping caches secret from non-players making caches in very public places harder to retrieve. When you have found a cache the Geocaching App allows you to upload your find details to the Geocaching website, leave a comment and post a picture before you replace the cache exactly where you found it for the next player to find.

Geocaching on the iPhone

Geocaching is great fun, can be a solo or team activity, is good exercise, helps you explore new locations, and uses your Smartphone perfectly, it’s a connected approach to a popular game and hobby.

To start Geocaching you will need to sign up for a free account at Geocaching.com and then download an appropriate App for your Smartphone, on iOS and Android you can’t go wrong with the official Geocaching Apps that are on sale in the App stores, although there are free unofficial Geocaching apps also available for you to get started, for example Geobeagle is a great free app available in the Google Play store.

About the Author

This has been a blog post by John Lane, John has been playing and enjoying video games since 1982. To read all his Blog Posts Click Here.

You can follow John on Twitter at @videogamejohn