Bose SoundTrue Review [Video]

Video provided by: Sound Guys YouTube Channel

While Bose originally made a name for itself with compact full stereo systems, it was only natural that as the company grew, so would its line of products. Now, if you can listen to music through it, there’s a fairly good chance that Bose makes it – Bluetooth speakers, in-ear headphones, over-ear headphones, you name it. While Bose is still most popular for its larger speaker systems, the company seems to be committing to its push into other areas by launching its newly branded SoundTrue headphones.

The Bose SoundTrue headphones are available in both around-ear and on-ear styles, depending on your preference. For noise isolation, the around-ear models are definitely the way to go, so that’s what we’re looking at today. Do these headphones hold up to Bose’s standard of high-quality sound?

What do you think of Bose’s newest headphones?

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HTC Desire 816 Review

[Editor's note: Our review unit is from China, and while it has Sense 5.5, it will be updated to Sense 6 'soon'. All Desire 816's purchased outside of China will have Sense 6 out of the box] 

Typically when we think of midrange devices one of the first words that tend to come to mind is compromise.  We think of lesser performance, lesser build quality, lesser specs, pretty much lesser everything. Now HTC, a company that is known for premium build quality, performance, and design, is looking to redefine the midrange game by bringing everything that you tend to expect from high end flagships in a more modest package.

HTC is looking to prove that just because a phone is “midrange” doesn’t necessarily mean that every single aspect of the phone has to be sacrificed, and if there is a company out there that could build a quality midrange phone it’s HTC.

Let’s take a look at HTC’s latest midrange offering with the Desire 816 in our full review.

First Glance

The Desire lineup has always been very  popular overseas and the 816 is no exception selling out extremely quick in countries like China during it’s initial launch.

We didn’t do an actual unboxing for the Desire 816 but the packaging was very typical HTC.  Inside the box is the phone itself obviously and everything else was pretty standard like the micro USB charging cable, wall adapter, and the usual slew of reading materials.  Unfortunately this phone does not come with any earbuds included, which HTC is usually pretty good about.

Design & Build Quality

In terms of build quality the Desire 816 is a very solidly constructed device.  It’s a unibody design that is made entirely of plastic with a glossy back that can be very prone to finger prints and a matte finish on the sides and front which I thought would get dirty easily, especially on this white model but it seems to have held up pretty well so far.  It doesn’t hold a candle to the aluminum construction of the One M8 but the Desire 816 still feels very premium in the hand and could give other major flagship devices a run for their money.

There’s no denying that this is a large phone compared to most. It’s wide and tall and it’s a little on the slippery side making it hard to hold on to but it’s probably no bigger than a  Samsung Galaxy Note 3.  If you’re used to phones that size than you shouldn’t have any issues but it is larger than the Nexus 5 and definitely much larger than Moto X.  Despite it’s size though it’s a surprisingly thin phone coming in at only 7.99 mm.

The top of the phone houses the typical 3.5mm headset jack with a noise cancellation microphone.  The micro USB port sits on the bottom and then following along to the right side is a rather large flap that covers the two sim card slots and a micro SD card slot with support for up to a whopping 128 gigs of storage.  And finally on the left side of the phone is the volume rocker and a power button that is awkwardly placed right above that took some getting used to.

I like that HTC put the power button the side but I would have preferred it to be on the right side or at least a little lower on the chassis so it’s easier to reach without having to shuffle the device around in my hand just to power it on.

Speakers

On the front of the phone is HTC’s now tried and true BoomSound speakers which HTC made very popular with the One line up.  Trust me when I say this – but there are absolutely no compromises with the quality of the speakers.  They are very loud and produce a clean and crisp sound with just the right amount of bass and the size of the phone actually creates a very nice stereo effect when watching videos or listening to music in landscape.

HTC’s front facing BoomSound speakers are still the best speakers you can find on a smartphone so it’s nice to see them push this feature into their midrange line up.

Display

Also on the front is the 5.5 inch LCD display coming in at 1280×720 resolution and even though this isn’t the highest  resolution or pixel dense display, it’s still a great looking display. I would say it’s every bit as good as the One M8 minus the resolution obviously, and that features great color reproduction, wide viewing angles, and deep looking blacks for being an LCD.

The bezels around the display are a little large and you still get that bottom bar for a dedicated HTC logo just like you do on the One M8, but honestly it didn’t bother me all that much or detract from the viewing experience.  Overall, it’s a great looking display with a size that is perfect for consuming media like watching movies or playing games.

Specs & Performance

Specs wise the Desire 816 is rocking a Snapdragon 400 processor clocked at 1.6Ghz backed by 1.5GB of RAM, an Adreno 305 GPU and 8GB of internal storage. No, this phone doesn’t have the latest and greatest specs but with Android 4.4 KitKat having lower system requirements, this thing doesn’t need it. It’s still plenty fast in day to day usage and seemed to handle everything I threw at it with relative ease.

Apps opened very quickly, web browsing performance was great, and I had no problems playing graphically intensive games likes Shadowgun Deadzone or Dead Trigger 2. The overall experience has been smooth and responsive with very little lag.

Camera

The camera on the Desire 816 is also nothing to be overlooked coming in at 13 megapixels with auto focus and a single LED flash. Besides the BoomSound speakers, the camera is probably one of the best parts about this phone. When you fire this camera up for the first time you will notice that this is not the new Sense 6 camera but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The Sense 5 camera software is still great and it will be very familiar territory for anyone that’s ever used the original HTC One. Thankfully, it’s only units sold in China that will feature Sense 5, whereas the rest of the world will receive Sense 6 out of the box.

The shutter speed isn’t instant but it’s still fast enough to fire off some quick shots in any given situation and there’s a lot of shooting modes and options to help you get that perfect shot. The photos come out looking very sharp and at 13 megapixels worth of resolution you’re going to be able to zoom and crop without losing much detail which is an important aspect to a lot of people.

Color reproduction is great as photos came out looking vibrant without looking overly saturated. Dynamic range is decent as the camera does a pretty good job of balancing out the lights and darks but every once in a while you’ll get that shot where the lights are completely blown out or there’s a lot of detail being lost in the dark. With an aperture of f/2.2 you can expect pretty good low light performance from this camera as well and you’ve got that same 5 megapixel front facing shooter from the One M8 for taking great looking selfies. If you’re into that sort of thing.

Overall this is a great camera on a supposedly midrange device and dare I say it but I think many people would have liked to see this camera in the One M8.

Battery Life

The battery capacity of the Desire 816 is rated at 2600 mAh, which happens to be the same size battery as the one found in the One M8. It is a non-removable battery which might be a deal breaker for some but I’m used to phones with non-removable batteries so it didn’t bother me at all. I had no problems with the battery life and was very impressed by the longevity of the battery on a single charge. During my first full day with this device I managed to keep the phone unplugged for a little over 24 hours before I had to put it back on the charger which wasn’t until early afternoon the next day.

I did the usual activities like text, check social networks, read emails, browse the web, watch YouTube, listen to music, you name it.  I also spent a great amount of time testing out the camera so I was pleasantly surprised at how long the phone lasted even with such heavy usage on the camera. I didn’t do anything special to manage the battery life.  With the exception of keeping the screen brightness low, I used this phone just like I normally would any other phone.

Software

On the software side of things the Desire 816 is running the latest version of Android out of the box with 4.4.2 KitKat with Sense 5.5 and features on screen buttons just like the One M8 so it looks like HTC might be making the shift to on screen keys for good.  It’s very surprising to see the Desire 816 ship with an older version of Sense and not the latest Sense 6 especially considering back at Mobile World Congress, HTC wouldn’t allow anyone to turn the phone on because it was running new software.

[Editor's note: HTC has confirmed that all Desire 816's sold outside of China will feature Sense 6]

It’s great that this phone ships with the latest version of Android but sadly, as our review unit was acquired out of China, it only has Sense 5.5. It still has features like Zoe, video highlights, and Blinkfeed on your left most home screen which I was unable to use because our review unit is the China model of the Desire 816 so all the news sources happened to be in Chinese. If you buy the Desire 816 outside of China, it will feature Sense 6 and will feature Blinkfeed in your language of choice. 

Connectivity

If you’re wondering about connectivity this phone supports HSPA+ and LTE but the band support is rather limited.  You’ll want to be careful if you do decide to purchase this phone as there are two models floating around out there.  The EMEA model or Europe, Middle East, Africa and the China model, both of which support the same connectivity but on slightly different bands.

I can’t speak for the EMEA model but as far as the China model is concerned I was able to get great HSPA+ speeds on T-Mobile’s network but no LTE unfortunately.  If you don’t mind HSPA+ than you shouldn’t have any problems using this phone on U.S. carriers like T-Mobile and AT&T.

Pricing & Availability

The Desire 816 is available now internationally through various outlets such as Amazon ranging from 370 to 400 Euros and in the United States the only place that I’ve managed to find it is on Ebay for a little over 400 dollars.  Not such a bad price in my opinion considering all that this phone offers even if it is “midrange.”

Conclusion

So there you have it for the HTC Desire 816.  Overall, this is a fantastic phone and although it’s being pushed as a midrange offering I never felt that way about this phone during my time using it. It comes packed with a large and beautiful looking display with the premium build quality that we come to expect from HTC.  You also get HTC’s BoomSound speakers with a pretty awesome camera that completes the entire package.  If you can live without LTE and a lower resolution display than I have no reservations on recommending this phone and if there’s a midrange phone out there that’s worth looking at, it’s the Desire 816.

Galaxy Gear Fit hands-on review: Sammy's fitness armband

Today we tried out the Galaxy S5 with the Gear Fit from Samsung, which is a hybrid between a fitness armband and a smartwatch. I used the Gear Fit for an entire day and even went jogging with it. At the end, I was quite happy, but I still wouldn’t buy it. Why not? Read on to find out.

© AndroidPIT

In comparison to the Galaxy Gear 2, the Gear Fit is significantly smaller and lighter, but I still wouldn’t describe it as jewelry by any means. The design is subtle and modern, and would please both men and women, as it is black (ours was, but you can get other colored band) and intended as a sport accessory.

What worked

Mostly it worked the way I would have imagined. The connection between smartphone (in our case the Galaxy S5) and the Gear Fit worked smoothly, notifications were displayed without any lags, and when you read them on the Gear Fit and swipe them away, they return to the S5. The distance up to which the Bluetooth connection works is around 20 meters, which also functioned without a drop in connection.

© AndroidPIT

Even operating the music player via Gear Fit worked well and was actually quite practical. For example, if you are jogging along and want to change a song or adjust the volume, you can do this easily on the small display on your wrist. There is also a search option in case you have forgotten the smartphone somewhere, that I found wasn’t very helpful. A search mode for the Gear Fit would be more practical.

© AndroidPIT

While connected to the Samsung Fitness app, S Health, data is transferred to the Gear Fit, however the steps aren’t synced with the numbers on the S5, so you will always have two different values.

What didn’t work

So far so good I thought, but unfortunately things went downhill from there. This starts off with the fact that you can only really use it when it is connected to the smartphone. The step counter works with without the S5 as well as the heart-rate sensor, but otherwise the Gear Fit isn’t more than a watch without a smartphone. To measure distance for example, you’ll need the smartphone’s GPS function. All of these facts make it therefore impractical when it comes to actually doing sports. Why would one wear a fitness watch if you need to schlep a smartphone anyways?

© AndroidPIT

One of the features that should theoretically be quite useful turned out to be really unreliable during the test: the display should automatically turn on and show the time when you lift your wrist. In practice this worked every one out of three times. The same happened with the heart rate monitor as well: when doing sports and  sweating as one normally would, the area of skin under the band will start getting moist, which sadly messes up the sensor data. These two functions that would actually make life a lot easier do the opposite: they really get on the nerves!

Bottom Line

I like the concept behind the fitness armband: I’m no number or stats freak, but I like to be able to monitor my workout performance. The maximum and average speeds, the number of steps I’ve taken and the amount of burned calories as well as the distance I’ve run are things I've calculated using RunKeeper and with Gear Fit, switching to Samsung S Health ecosystem was an easy step. On the other hand though, the fact that most of its functions require to have the smartphone with you proved to be a bit annoying. For a gadget that costs 199.99 USD, I would expect more.

Apparently you don't even need a Samsung phone to be able to use it, even non-Samsung phones can use the Gear Fit.

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HTC One (M8) Motion Launch gestures review

The HTC One (M8) has added quite a lot of nice software features to Sense 6. One of these, Motion Launch, we're already familiar with from LG's KnockON feature from the G2 and subsequent adaptations to include rhythms and pattern unlock via knocking. The One (M8) has a few different screen-off gestures that we will run through for you here. We've also got a video of the gestures in action at the bottom.

Motion Launch gestures are one of the nicest core features on the HTC One (M8).

Double Tap to Wake

This is quickly becoming an essential for any Android device, and will likely be the standard way to unlock your device by the end of the year. HTC have implemented this feature in the One (M8) and it's a good thing too, because the M8 is a pretty darn tall drink of water, and reaching all the way up to the top power button is no mean feat when using one hand. It works exactly the same as it does on the LG G2.

Side swiping

There's two side-swiping gestures available to the M8, both of which mirror the effect you'd get if your screen was unlocked. Swiping from left to right will bypass your lock screen and open BlinkFeed. Swiping from right to left will bypass your lock screen and open your widget screen. Strangely, in our video test, this widget gesture didn't work (although it had worked before we started shooting) and instead took us directly to the home screen.

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Link to Video

Up and down

Swiping up on the One (M8) will perform a basic unlock and take you to your home screen the same as double tap to wake, while swiping down will unlock and turn on voice dialing. In our video we didn't have a SIM card inserted, but I'm sure you can imagine how it works just fine. Some of these gestures seem a little redundant to me, so being able to set your own gesture actions like you can with many custom launchers (although not from a screen-off state) would be a perfect next step.

In the Motion launch menu, as well as the first time you use a gesture, you'll get a notification. / © AndroidPIT

Camera launch

Other than double tap to wake, the best Motion Launch gesture in my opinion is the M8 camera launch shortcut. From a powered off screen, just pick up your phone in portrait mode and press the volume button to immediately launch the camera app. This will even bypass any security passwords that you have enabled (like PIN, pattern lock etc). Although you can see a thumbnail of the last photo taken, you will be required to input your password to access the gallery.

Other stuff

Motion Launch gestures are affected by whether or not you have a lock screen in place – for some you will be taken to your lock screen, for others, straight to your home screen. You can also bypass the lockscreen entirely if you also have security enabled (like a pattern or PIN lock), so when you use a Motion Launch gesture you are taken straight to the security screen. This option is changed in your M8's Security menu. If your sensors are covered, none of the Motion Launch gestures will work, so there's no fear of pocket launching either.

I'd like to see customizable actions for the stock Motion Launch gestures.  / © AndroidPIT

Final Verdict

As mentioned above, some of the gestures seem a little redundant to me and are not gestures I expect to ever use. Swiping up and down for me will be entirely replaced by double tap to wake, although I've never been a voice dialer in the first place. For me, double tap and the camera shortcut are by far the most useful, and are plenty enough for me to be impressed by Motion Launch. Customizable actions for the stock gestures would be the ideal next step, so instead of launching BlinkFeed you could launch Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. And you could substitute one of the redundant home screen actions for your favorite game or music player. Even if HTC don't bring this in future, I expect Motion Launch to be hacked to allow it soon enough.

What do you think of HTC's Motion Launch gestures? What would you set them to if they were customizable?

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Samsung Gear Fit review

Buy the Samsung Gear Fit now for $204.95 from Amazon

Advances in technology have certainly played a big role in making our lives a whole lot easier, but with almost everything now available at the tip of your fingers, it has also been a contributing factor in making us a lot lazier. Various tech companies are now taking up the cause for our health and fitness needs, or at the very least, keep a track of it.

Samsung is the latest in an every-growing list of companies that is throwing their hat into the fitness ring, with the aptly named Samsung Gear Fit. With the Gear Fit, Samsung tries to bridge the gap between fitness bands and smartwatches, by attempting to offer the best of both worlds. Do they succeed in the first try? We find out, in this comprehensive review of the Samsung Gear Fit! 

Design

If you thought that the Gear line of smartwatches were a little less than accessible, or even just a bit of eyesore, the Gear Fit addresses that issue with a refreshingly accessible, and easy to look at, design.

The Gear Fit is comprised of a 1.84-inch curved OLED display, a single button, along with a charging connector and a heart rate monitor on the back, that fits into a rubber band that is replaceable and available in numerous colour options to suit your style. If you’ve ever used a fitness band like Fitbit or the Nike FuelBand before, the Samsung Gear Fit takes up that particular motif, but features a lot more functionality due its unique display experience.

As far as the band goes, it is surprisingly easy to put on, compared to the Gear smartwatches, which were a little confusing at first. A double pin fastener fits right into the holes on the other part of the band, allowing you to easily wear and remove the Gear Fit without any fuss.

While the Gear Fit is bigger than most other fitness bands, the overall size of the entire setup does keep it from getting too bulky. In fact, it is quite light and fits snugly on your wrist without weighing it down, and as is the hope from any fitness band that you’d have on for long periods of time, after a while, you won’t even notice that you have the Gear Fit on.

Display

Of course, the eye-catching part of the Gear Fit is its vibrant display, and you should definitely get ready to answer questions about the device when the display turns on to show notifications, or when you check the time.

The touchscreen capabilities are easy to use and allow for quick access to various functions, but touch sensitivity was a little spotty at times, as I was forced to press a button multiple times until I was finally able to get in.

If you watched my first hands-on with the Gear Fit, you’ll know that I found the landscape orientation a little bit odd considering the way the band is positioned on the wrist, which led to me suggesting wearing the Gear Fit backwards on your wrist for better reading comfort. This still holds true, but is helped a lot by the fact that you have the ability to make the display go into portrait mode, which is what I use on a semi-permanent basis now. When you view your notifications, you can set it to go into landscape mode whenever you open one, but reading a whole notification in this orientation can lead to some uncomfortable stretching of the arm and wrist.

There is little to take away from the display of the Gear Fit as it primarily shows the potential of such devices in the future. Basically, if Samsung is able to outfit its device with such a great display in its first attempt, we’re really excited to see how far this form factor can go in general.

Performance and Battery

Given how much, or rather how little, the Gear Fit is supposed to do, its performance was never in question. Swiping between functions was smooth, and there were never any issues getting to what I needed.

As far as battery life is concerned, it is capable of going for a couple of days, which isn’t particularly terrible, but definitely pales in comparison to the capabilities of the other fitness bands that can go for far longer than that. Of course, those fitness bands also don’t have a large display to power, so the difference in battery life is certainly understandable.

It should be mentioned though that the charging module that snaps into the back of the device is really small, and basically looks like a small hunk of plastic, which means that if you aren’t careful, you could end up losing it quite easily.

Software and Usage

Leaving out all other factors, what ultimately matters is ease of use, and the Gear Fit is certainly an impressive first attempt, but unfortunately falls victim to the usual Samsung trope, and ends up trying to be too many things at once, without being really excellent at any one.

Of course, the main component of the Gear Fit is fitness. Functionality as a fitness band includes things like tracking steps, you sleep cycle, and distance-based activities. There’s nothing more that you’d really be able to use this for, so it all depends on your fitness regime. For example, if you exclusively do a lot of weight training, you won’t be getting as much use out of the Gear Fit.

The pedometer is a required feature of any fitness band, but proves to be quite inaccurate in this case. Walking around the LA Arboretum for a camera shootout resulted in around 3000 steps in one hour, which is certainly way too high to be accurate. The other issue with the pedometer, as well as the sleep tracker, is that they are not always firing, and you have to actively turn them on before you actually do the activities, which can definitely get frustrating if you forget to turn it on a few times.

Fitness tracking with the Gear Fit allows for the recording of the distance travelled, how long the workout was, and also the general amount of calories you’ve burned. All this information is collected in the S Health application, which is quite robust by itself, but anyone looking for more from their workout data may not be satisfied here.

Unlike the heart rate monitor found on the back of the Samsung Galaxy S5 that is capable of only single readings, the HRM on the Gear Fit is capable of constantly monitoring your heart rate, but only after you turn on a coaching mode, which will constantly track the heart rate and let you know to take it easy in case of a high BPM.

The holes in its operation are what make the Gear Fit less than favourable companion for anyone who is very into fitness. It requires a lot of manual input to even work, the fitness tracking options available are quite basic and minimal, and while having an always-on heart rate monitor during workouts is definitely a positive, the Gear Fit doesn’t add anything to the fitness band game other a pretty screen.

On the other side of the coin is the capabilities of the Gear Fit as a smartwatch. You can of course, look at the time, and basic weather information on the homescreen, the background of which can also be set to a specific image that can be set from the Gear Fit Manager app on your Galaxy device. You also get a Find My Device app that notifies you if either of the devices are too far away from each other, and a Media Controller that lets you skip tracks or change the volume, and was the feature that I ended up using the most.

Notifications are the marquee function provided by having a nice screen, but like I alluded to before, it’s far from a perfect implementation. When using the Gear Fit in portrait mode, notifications that come up are often scrunched up due to formatting issues.

You can, of course, view notifications in landscape mode as well, but not only does this require quite a lot of scrolling, it is also hard to read it without straining your arm to line it up just right. Notifications are also on a view-only basis, so while you can set up basic templates for responses, you’ll still find yourself reaching for your phone more often than not.

Gallery

Final Thoughts

And so there you have it, the Samsung Gear Fit. While it has its flaws, it does help when you consider that this is probably just the beginning. With all that Samsung missed in this first attempt at providing a fitness orientated experience, users will probably be more excited about the prospect of having fully capably displays on their wearable devices. This is the  first wearable capable of some smartwatch capabilities, that is very easy to use and wear throughout the day, and while having it on will add to your geek cred, the moment you realize you forgot to personally turn on the pedometer or the sleep tracker, is when you realize this is definitely more geek-orientated than catered to fitness buffs. The first order of business is fixing the current issues, and that should be enough for Samsung to unlock the potential of what was an exciting development in the world of wearable tech.

Buy the Samsung Gear Fit now for $204.95 from Amazon

Samsung Galaxy S5 Review: More Evolution Than Revolution Despite New Hardware Features

The Galaxy S5 (or S 5, if you ask Samsung) is the company’s latest flagship phone and sure to be a swift seller. The phone is, in its own way, beautifully designed and the materials, while clearly plastic, are durable and should maintain a luster over time. Is this an iPhone replacement? No, but it is a replacement for the S4 that should please shoppers already predisposed to Samsung and Android.

Video Review

Samsung Galaxy S5 Review

Basics

• 5.1-inch, 1920×1080, 432 ppi display
• 16/32GB storage, 128GB expandable via microSD
• 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, LTE
• 16MP rear camera, 2MP front facing camera
• Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 2.5GHz processor
• 2GB RAM
• Fingerprint reader, optical heart rate monitor
• MSRP: $199.99 on 2-year agreement, $650 off-contract
• Product info page

Pros

• Heart rate monitor is genuinely handy, especially for aging population
• Latest TouchWiz UI is best-designed yet

Cons

• Still feels like a plastic phone
• More misses than hits with fingerprint scanner

Design

Samsung’s Galaxy S5 is not a revolution in industrial design. It looks like the GS4, with a bit of influence from the Note 3 that Samsung released last fall. The unit I tested had the black pebbled faux leather back, which is surprisingly pleasant to both touch and look at, and the phone is rimmed with a faux metal plastic border that reminds me of something from a 50s diner stool. It’s not the refined, all-metal design of the HTC One M8, but it is appealing in its own way. I still think Samsung would do well to join the big boys like Apple with use of high-quality materials, but if we must have plastic, then this is the plastic I’d opt to have.

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One advantage of the plastic: the back, at least, is relatively durable and drop-proof. Also, the phone is remarkably light, especially given that whopper of a display it’s packing. Plus, this is a water-resistant phone that doesn’t look like a water-resistant phone (read: it isn’t bulky) so that’s a plus. The USB flap door that ensures completely IP67 environment protection is a pain, however, given the frequency with which you’ll have to fidget with it to charge and connect to your computer.

Features

Samsung has refined TouchWiz, and the My Magazine feature on the Galaxy S5 is a nice way to get your social and news fix in one place, reminiscent of the BlinkFeed feature on HTC’s Sense UI. The built-in Samsung apps all get updates this round, but the best new features on the device are, surprisingly, the ones that sort of seemed glommed on unnecessarily.

The heart rate monitor Samsung included on the device uses pulse oximetry to detect a person’s heart rate through their finger tip. The concept is surprisingly simple, and my veterinarian brother says they’ve been using the tech to find your pet’s heart rate for years; essentially, it shines a light through the capillaries in your finger tip, taking snapshots of the size of the blood vessels within in rapid succession, to detect how engorged they are and then translating that into a number representing beats per minute. It’s a highly accurate measurement method, and indeed in testing it returned results that made sense given my relative level of activity, caffeination, time of day and more.

Related Videos

The fingerprint sensor is also interesting. It works decently well, but has a higher failure rate than Apple’s Touch ID sensor, at least when used natural with a one hand grip, swiping the thumb down from the screen over the sensor pad. This makes it suboptimal for use with unlocking the device, but used as a specific security tool for unlocking sensitive data within apps, or for authorizing payments, both of which are possible since Samsung makes the hardware feature available to third-party devs, it becomes a lot more interesting.

That said, both of these features are unlikely to make a splash in your daily life. The heart rate monitor is a handy shortcut for aging users who need to keep tabs on their cardiovascular health fairly regularly and change their behavior accordingly, but for the most part, it’s little more than a neat trick to pull out at parties and then quietly forget about.

Of the software features included on the Galaxy S5, the best is probably Milk Music, which is for U.S.-customers only and offers streaming radio, ad- and subscription-free. The service works great as a replacement for terrestrial radio thanks to its auto-start, dial-based discovery interface that required minimal user input to get to the music, and it has an impressive library of tracks thanks to Samsung’s use of Slacker Radio to power the service. Milk Music is available to any recent Galaxy device, however, so it isn’t necessarily a reason to buy.

Display

Samsung’s GS5 display is definitely a sight to behold, but it’s very hard to impress in the display world these days – or too easy. In terms of display quality related to pixel density and the crispness of text and graphics, I haven’t been able to discern a difference since Apple introduced its Retina display on the iPhone 4. The Galaxy S5′s screen size is impressive, however, and makes for a great way to watch mobile video thanks to full HD resolution and a 5.1-inch diagonal surface area, all in a phone that manages to still not feel overly large for a pocket.

Is it the best screen in the smartphone business? Very possibly. Is it a huge improvement over the GS4′s screen? For most users, no, and in fact, it actually has less pixel density than its predecessor. If screen quality is a key decision point for those considering an upgrade from last year’s model, then keep that wallet closed; the GS4 still has an excellent screen, and the GS5 hasn’t made any strides in that regard to merit an expensive upgrade. Plus, as with seemingly every Android device, auto-brightness still has major issues getting things right. Apple seems to be alone in divining the secret sauce for properly dimming and brightening your display based on ambient conditions.

Camera

CrunchBase

• Samsung Electronics

  • Founded February 1969
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The camera on the Samsung Galaxy S5 benefits from the company’s alter-ego as a camera maker, and works very well in optimal conditions, with fast autofocus and high res 16MP captures. But it still doesn’t fare all that well in low-light situations, the bane of all mobile cameras, and some of the features new to the GS5, while impressive from a tech standpoint, leave a lot to be desired.

Specifically, the focus selection option on Samsung’s phone is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it produces great final results, letting you create portraits with background blur that look like they were taken with much more expensive cameras with fancy interchangeable, wide aperture lenses. On the other hand, they take a long time to capture, which makes getting candids with them near impossible, and taking portraits an exercise in “wait, no don’t move yet, it’s still processing.”

The trade-off for your patience is that the photos are much better in terms of overall quality than the selective focus pictures captured with the HTC One M8′s Duo Camera (which captures images much faster though). But the effect can be replicated on other devices, including the iPhone, using third-party camera apps, so it has a lot less value as a selling feature for the GS5 over other handsets.

Battery

The battery on the Galaxy S5 is removable, so that’s already a big advantage over some of the competition. It bumps up capacity over the GS4′s power house by 200mAh, which puts the total at 2,800mAh. In practice, it improved things over the GS4 and gave a full day of use under normal to high circumstances, but the HTC One M8 still outperformed it overall. The GS5 doesn’t offer any quantum leaps in battery tech, in the end, but if you like having the option to swap, it’s there with the GS5, and not with the One.

Bottom Line

The Galaxy S5 offers some genuinely useful stuff that the Galaxy S4 doesn’t, with extreme water and dust-protection (which really works, based on a brief 30-second submersion test and use in a fairly strong downpour) that should give most users a lot of extra peace of mind. It also increases the screen size even further, refines the look and feel of the all-plastic case and improves the onboard camera. You get some extra hardware widgets on this new model, both of which feel a little like kitchen sink additions.

Overall, though, the Galaxy S5 can’t help but feel like a dressed up Galaxy S4. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and new users will be very happy with their purchase. It might not be enough to convince existing device owners to upgrade, however, and if you’re on the fence between this and other devices like the HTC One M8 or the upcoming iPhone, it’s probably best to wait it out or try competing devices in person. I stand by my declaration that the One is the best Android smartphone currently available, but Samsung’s GS5 is a close contender for the crown.

HTC One M8 camera hands-on video review

Loie Favre 2014-04-07T18:00:01Z1 day ago

Loie Favre

Loie Favre is a Canadian-German, food-loving, live-music-craving globe-trotter. Coming from a humble background in the Canadian Prairies centred around nature and the Arts, she studied Translation and Languages in Edmonton. She left his home on the Pacific Coast of Canada, to seek her fortune in Berlin. She is now an Editor and Manager for AndroidPIT.com and is enjoying discovering about everything and anything under the sun about Android.

Yesterday we took an in-depth look at the camera and its features on the HTC One (M8), and today we were able to demonstrate the many features on the UltraPixel duo camera in our hands-on video, such as 3D effects, UFocus, filters and more.

 © AndroidPIT

Throughout our hands-on test of the HTC One M8 camera, we got through the various features and explain them one by one. HTC was able to put some really cool features on its new flagship, though many could be considered a tad gimmicky, such as the stickers and ''Seasons'' (leaves, snow etc) overlays.

The duo camera allows for more depth information in the pictures, which gives us some nice features like UFocus and 3D Dimensions Plus, the first allowing you to manually choose the focused and blurred parts of the pictures, while the second makes the image appear 3D, allowing you to save the picture in a brand-new angle.

Manual mode is a highlight for the camera believe it or not, because you are able to adjust the various settings in a very intuitive way, like white balance, contrast, ISO, shutter speed and then actually see the changes on the viewfinder screen before even taking the picture. The same goes for HDR and the other modes, so there is a lot less surprise in the end result. All this and more is demonstrated in the video. With these added features, HTC is catching up to Samsung in terms of the amount of camera features and may have even surpassed their rival in certain areas. Check it out for yourself in as we explore the various features.

Link to video

What do you think of the HTC One M8 camera? Do you think the features are useful?

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Amazon Fire TV Review: A Fast Ride That'll Cost You

Take your pick of streaming devices—there are already plenty out there. Amazon says its new Fire TV can best every Roku, Chromecast, and Apple TV in the land on speed, ease of use, and a treasure box of extras. In most cases, Fire TV delivers on those promises. But it comes at a price.

What Is It?

Amazon's new $100 HDMI lightning-fast streaming media box. It also doubles as a budget gaming system, with more than 100 titles from top-notch studios like EA, Disney, GameLoft, and more available at launch. (Although Amazon says it is decidedly not a gaming console; it's basically if an Ouya and a Roku fell in love). Games can be played with the device's remote, a $40 standalone Amazon controller, or with the Bluetooth controller of your choice..

Why Does It Matter?

You have oodles of options when it comes to buying a streaming TV device, and there's more stuff to watch on all of them than you could in a lifetime. If you're an Apple devotee, Apple TV has probably made the most sense for you because it plays nice with your iTunes library, and AirPlay is a dream. If you're on Android, Chromecast may be your bag for its cheapness and (recently) open SDK. And if you're platform agnostic, Roku's got more than one compelling and affordable option. The choices are pretty clearly delineated. So where does Amazon fit in?

On its most basic level, Fire TV offers those who've dived head-first into the Amazon ecosystem a home of their own. It goes great with your Cloud Drive and your Fire HDX and your Prime account. If your relationship with Amazon is more casual, though—if you just stream the occasional Justified episode on Prime and have a monthly Subscribe & Save PopChips delivery—you still might be interested in the Fire TV's other life as a microconsole. Roku 3 can play a game or two, but not like this.

Let's even say, for the sake of the argument, that none of that matters to you. That's fine. Fire TV matters simply for the fact that Amazon can move units just by giving it home page real estate. It took less than 24 hours for Fire TV to become the top-selling streaming device on Amazon. It still is, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. A whole lot of people are going to buy this thing. So what exactly are they getting?

Design

Fire TV is a nondescript black box, which is really everything you could hope for from a living room addition. For perspective, it's slightly larger than both Roku 3 and Apple TV, although it's slimmer and more stylish than both, thanks to that nice matte finish. It may lack the subtlety of Roku's back-of-the-boob-tube HDMI streaming dongle, but makes for a fine, noninvasive member of your media center.

You've got two cords to deal with; Fire TV plugs into your television via HDMI, and into the wall with a charger. The remote, which is also black and about a credit card and a half long and a pack of gum thick, goes nicely with the box itself, although you'll almost definitely lose it between the couch cushions, as it is shaped almost perfectly to fit between couch cushions.

The remote is fairly basic, but that's a blessing in an over-buttoned world. It has a row of buttons for playback (rewind, play/pause, and fast forward) and a row for back, home, and menu. Above that is a click wheel, and above all else is a dedicated button for voice search, a feature that you can access from anywhere in the system. You can use your Kindle Fire HDX as a remote, but nothing else yet. App support will eventually come to iOS and Android devices, but Amazon hasn't specified when.

The Bluetooth game controller is also pretty basic and straightforward. It's most reminiscent of an old OnLive controller, for those who remember 2010. Compared to the more Xbox One controller, the Fire TV offering is a little boxier, with more shallow triggers and a row on the bottom center for playback controls. It feels a little cheap, and you probably won't want to spend 40 bucks on this thing (even if it does come with 1000 Amazon Coins, which equals ten bucks of gaming credits, and Sev Zero, an Amazon original game). The good news is that you don't have buy it; Fire TV will work with any Bluetooth gaming remote.

Using It

Getting Started

Setup? What setup? This is where the beauty of Amazon's everything-ism become apparent. Fire TV comes registered to your Amazon account, so you plug it in, connect to your network and there you go. The only thing was, it had a little trouble locating the remote, and I had to restart it once. It also paired to the Bluetooth game controller in a matter of about 25 seconds. You have to go through the basic set ups for your apps, but that's just a matter of visiting a service like YouTube's activate URL and typing in a code that Fire TV has given you.

You could argue that the interface is a little bit uninviting, but I'd say it's just sleek and clean and flat. It's not necessarily groundbreaking, but sometimes that's not what you need—you really just need intuitive and easy, which Fire TV very much is.

On the left hand side, you have a menu that lists search, home, movies, TV, watchlist, video library (stuff you've purchased), games, apps, photos, and settings. Click right to hone in on one of those sections and left to go back. One click of the home button well send you right back to square one. No one needs this kind of system to be explained to them, and if you do, there's a short cartoon video intro that you've already seen when you plugged Fire TV in in the first place. If you still have questions, you can replay the video.

Voice Search

Voice search is impressive; it worked near-flawlessly every time I used it. What surprised me more, though, is that I actually found myself wanting to use it; voice search is usually just a buggy gimmick. Turns out, though, that when you take away the bugs, it's a much more appealing offer. Go figure!

Two big caveats here, though. One is that voice search is the default option when you hit the search button, so you'll find yourself pressured to use it even when you don't feel like it. The other, bigger catch? All search—voice or otherwise—only brings back Amazon results. A search for Scandal, for instance, will show you how to buy episodes on Amazon, but not that you can stream them as part of your Netflix subscription. It's an unfortunate restriction, especially in light of Roku's excellent universal search, which will show you everybody's everything.

It's also worth noting that you speak directly into the remote for voice search, and the remote is a very losable thing. It's not clear how much it'll cost to replace the remote when it inevitably disappears, and it's a little disappointing that you lose a major feature by tying Fire TV to your universal remote. Clutter bad!

The Actual Streaming Bit

For the most basic TV binging, Fire TV is an absolute pleasure to use. It is to Smart TVs what Michael Phelps is to Olympic swimming. Super speedy, never ever lags, won't fail a drug test. When you select a movie, load times are pretty much nonexistent. When you hit the home button—you can get back to your starter menu from anywhere—you will be taken home immediately. No clicking your heels three times or waiting while a wheel spins and thinks and spins. Roku's streaming stick is great, but in some cases it takes Netflix so long to load up, you might wonder if it's ever going to load at all.

App downloads are also super speedy. For the most part, it took less than 30 seconds to download pretty much anything, whether it's a game or Pandora or YouTube (no Spotify, for what it's worth). Pandora, by the way, will continue to play in the background even if you've exited the actual app. Music to search for something to watch to. Beautiful!

For now, you can only "fling" (Amazon's word for mirroring) content from a Kindle Fire HDX to Fire TV. It's somewhat of a walled garden scenario in that, stuff has to come from Amazon and it has to be from one, very specific Amazon device. Support is apparently coming to other Android devices as well as iOS, but for now, just one lonely corner of Amazonland.

In order to fling something, make sure your Fire HDX and your Fire TV are both on the same Wi-Fi network and that both devices are using the same account (there's not much reason they wouldn't be, but just in case you run into any problems). For now—and we don't know how long "now" may be—there's very little you can actually mirror, YouTube notwithstanding.

Bonus Features

Likewise, Amazon's XRay feature—IMDB-powered info that that pops up on your tablet as you're watching—is a great second-screen experience, when it's available. X-Ray is great when it's available. But it's not there for very many shows, and is another Kindle Fire HDX exclusive for now.

Amazon also promises that Fire TV will predict what you want to watch before you know you want to watch it. I haven't seen much of this yet, beyond a section on each title that lists related movies or TV shows. But granted, I might need to use the thing a little longer first.

Photo streaming is easy peasy lemon squeezy. That is, if your stuff is already stored with Amazon. Then, when you open the Photos section, you'll automagically see everything you've saved to Amazon Cloud Drive up on your teevee.

But personally, I use iCloud and PhotoStream for my photos, making Apple TV a better fit for me in this area. If you're in the same boat and you're not already committed to Amazon's cloud storage option, this feature won't work for you as well, unless you want to upend your entire system. The photo stuff is nice, but not worth deflecting to Fire TV for unless you're already a full-on Amazonian.

Gaming

Full disclosure: I am not a gamer by trade. I like diddling around with Threes on my phone in my spare time, but I don't care about games enough to buy a dedicated console. (I actually have an Xbox 360 I inherited from Valleywag editor Sam Biddle, but I use it strictly to play Dance Central 3).

On Fire TV, I really enjoyed the Despicable Me game—it's Temple Run's ducking, dodging, diving, and coin-collecting meets the yellow Minions. Riptide GP 2, a jetski racing game, also held my interest. There are plenty from which to choose, from Minecraft to an arcade racing game called Asphalt 8, with more on the way. Games are anywhere from 14MB for say, Riptide, all the way up to just south of 200MB for the Amazon-produced Sev Zero first-person shooter. You've got 8GB of storage to play with here, so unless you're keeping movies onboard—unlikely, since you're streaming them—you've got enough room for plenty of games.

And there should be plenty to choose from; Amazon has hired top designers of big-name games like Portal and Far Cry 2 for its in-house game factory. But Fire TV games occupy a weird, Ouya-like space. They're definitely not full console quality (which no one would expect them to be, at this price), but they're also not necessarily a huge improvement over playing similar games on a tablet. If you're a hardcore microconsole flag-bearer and don't already own an Ouya, sure? Otherwise, the gaming part of Fire TV feels superfluous.

One more note; you can technically play games with the Fire TV remote, not the controller. You just might not want to, because you don't get the full range of motion on the click wheel that you would on a dedicated joystick. Also, it's a tiny remote, and you don't hate your hands and fingers enough to force it on them.

Like

Voice search is never not amazing. You almost dare it to mess up, trying the most complicated names you can think of. Literally the only name Fire TV couldn't get right was Darren Aronofsky (Erin Off Ski), which still manages to be in the ballpark.

Fire TV's quad-core processor makes for browsing at breakneck speeds. Load times? Haha, what load time? When you select a movie, the movie starts instantly. Anytime you click home, you go home instantly. Fire TV is faster than any smart TV interface or streaming device I've laid eyes on.

No Like

Fire TV doesn't have HBO Go. That is bad, bad, bad in an environment where almost every other streaming device you might consider—any of the Rokus, Apple TV, or Chromecast—already have it. That doesn't mean it won't come eventually, but there's no word as to how long you might be waiting. Fire TV doesn't have Vudu, either, which is less of a concern, but it would be nice to at the very least, have the option.

More features and more horsepower are rarely a bad thing, but in this case it's driven the price of Fire TV much higher than one might have expected from an Amazon product. In a world full of $35 Chromecasts and $50 Roku sticks—which definitely can't do as much as Fire TV, but can arguably do more than enough—forking over $100 for the ability to play some biggie-sized tablet games is a tough sell.

Search is capable, but limiting results to Amazon is an unfortunate walled garden-type move. It feels like you're being tricked into paying things you've already bought through another subscription service.

Should You Buy It?

Let's make one thing perfectly clear: if you pay $100 for Amazon Fire TV, you are essentially paying for the speed, voice search, and games (especially the games). If that's what you want, then fine, sure, go for it. But be sure you know what you're getting.

Fire TV will sell well—it's already number one in the Amazon store. But as far as making something that's worth the money, I can't help but wish Amazon had opted for a little bit slower chipset, left out the gaming, and hit that $50 sweet spot. Yes, Fire TV is incredibly cost competitive with Apple TV right now. But that's not the prize it should have its eye on. And ceding the budget field to Chromecast and Roku doesn't feel particularly Amazonian.

Has Fire TV done anything to change the streaming status quo? Less than we might have hoped. If you're full-in on Amazon already, Fire TV does for your stuff what Apple TV does for the OS X and iOS faithful, with a decent gaming experience thrown in as a bonus. But with limited search, no HBO Go, and a price tag that twice as much (or more) as very appealing options, Fire TV doesn't have quite enough spark.

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