Verizon and Samsung have officially announced Samsung Continuum today at a press event in Manhattan. This is the latest S Series Galaxy phone from this manufacturer and a unique feature of this phone is that it has two screens. On the top, you have a 4.3 inch super AMOLED touch screen and on the bottom, there is the tiny 1.8 inch ticker screen. The latter is customizable and it streams information real time from social networks. It also gives you updates for sports, entertainment, weather feeds and news. The secondary display will save you some power as you don’t have to wake up the device from the standby state. Samsung Continuum has a grip sensor technology on the bottom. Touching the phone at the bottom will automatically activate this screen. You can then swipe your  [...]

Apple iPad is something between the iMac and the iPhone. Media is describing this gadget as the iPod Touch on steriods. In my opinion, the Apple iPad is a fun device to play games, surf the Web, watch videos and photos and also check emails while on the move. It may seem like a device made just for luxuries but if you buy it, trust me, you won't be disappointed. Apple iPad is available in three storage sizes. 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB which costs  £429, £499 and £599 respectively. If you want 3G too, you will have to pay another £100 for it. This means the most expensive Apple iPad costs £699. 3G will need some extra money for the data plan as well. The features of this device are the same as iPhone except for the cellular features. The size is the same as an A4 paper. It is bigger but certainly easier to carry than a Netbook. The only problem with this device is that it isn't targetted towards any specific audience. It can deliver your e-mails and it may be also  [...]

Laptop wars are at all time high in the market and it is really hard to choose amongst the tons of notebooks out there. I, as a tech reviewer, too find it pretty hard to recommend laptops for you guys because I have to look at the performance, features, and the price too should do justice to it. I have had a lot of laptops which are blazing fast but are priced at a very high price tag. On the other side, there are products which really inexpensive but absolutely useless because of the slow hardware inside! It all depends on what kind of user you are. There are high end gamers who don’t hesitate to spend big on a laptop having the latest hardware inside. There are also the business users who need a simple compact laptop for carrying it around with them where ever they go. I am compiling a list of the five best laptops I have ever tested to date in my labs. I’d like to reiterate that it was really hard to choose from a sea of notebooks out there. It took a lot of time  [...]

This phone was first seen in February at GSMA 2008 and just like most Nokia high end phones, this device took some time to come in the US. There are have been new products coming in the market since then and they have stole the N96’s thunder including Nokia’s own N97. I would still say that the Nokia N96 is a very impressive all-in-one handset and it deserves recognition for the huge 16 GB internal storage that it has. There are also tons of multimedia features and this device is a good replacement for any music/video players. Just like all N series phones, this phone is targeted at multimedia enthusiasts but it has all business features too. I was impressed by the various wireless connections and the onboard productivity suite. Apart from the increased memory and a few design tweaks, the N96 is quite similar to N95, its predecessor. I won’t recommend an upgrade if you already have the N95 especially with a price tag of $776 (unlocked). Nokia N96 phone  [...]

For testing the video quality of the Gateway FHD2303L, I connected it to my Windows Vista PC on its DVI port. DVI cable is bundled along with the monitor. This Gateway monitors was not as good as Samsung PX2370. In my black level tests, the FHD2303L crushed the dark grays and this means that the monitor will have problems displaying dark detail. I tested for this and found that it was true. I then put the Gateway FHD2303L through color tracking tests and saw a glaring green shade for movies when watched on the default settings. In the dark screen test, there was only a little bit of backlight breakthrough, on the bottom and top middle screen edges. In the motion bitmaps test, this Gateway monitors saw more streaking than the aforementioned PX2370 but I didn’t see this in my real world movie and game tests. For text, there were no problems of color and the black text looked great on white background. I could see the fonts clearly  [...]

When I first saw this laptop, the high end looks made a great first impression but after going through the laptop in detail, I realized that it was just an average product. The display is 15.6 inches wide and it offers a 1,366x768 pixels resolution which is quite standard for this screen size. Movies looked good on the display, the screen was bright enough and icons and text too were readable. Just like most laptops screens, this one has a sweet spot for the best contrast and color combo but the off angle viewing is mediocre. The notebook is equipped with Dolby Advanced Audio processing technology but the audio quality was not really impressive from the Altec Lansing-branded stereo speakers. The speakers are front firing and they sound thin. They are just ok for casual listening but if you want this laptop as an entertainment system, I would recommend you to buy external speakers. Finally, the microphone and Webcam is located above the display. I made a few Skype video tests and they lived  [...]

The Netbook world is getting smaller everyday because all of them are pretty much same. Netbooks come with a predefined set of hardware components and most manufacturers adhere to this set. Writing reviews on Netbooks is a getting a bit tough now because of the hardware similarities. They just differ in looks and brand name. Everything else remains same. Standard price for Netbooks is about $300 but there are some which cost higher than this. For instance, there are premium Netbooks which have high end looks. Better hardware is another factor which causes a rise in price. Asus Eee PC 1015PEM-PU17 that I got in my labs for reviewing has a dual core processor inside and this increases the price by $20 as compared to standard Netbooks. The a 1.5 GHz Atom N550 processor is made for people who multitask a lot. You won’t get drastic increase in speeds but it is still a bit faster than your average Netbook. Asus Eee PC 1015PEM-PU17 costs $369 and it is a bit  [...]

Apple recently updated its multimedia management suite. The company has put in a lot of features that will make the iLife ’11 a compelling reason to choose Apple computers over Windows PCs in the forthcoming holiday season. Existing Macs can upgrade to new iLife at just $49. iPhoto ’11 Apple has enhanced the full screen modes here. Now, it not only shows you the photos and editing possibilities but you can also scroll through the albums. The full screen feature will fully immerse you in the photos and they have become a very desired component in a lot of programs. This includes Web browsing too and Word processing documents. Apart from full screen feature, the iPhoto seems better integrated with online services like Flickr and Facebook. It grabs the photos from online accounts and shows it in iPhoto galleries and albums. I was surprised that Apple didn’t mention anything about MobileMe support but I think MobileMe members will get access to the galleries in iPhoto in  [...]

Panasonic TC-P50GT25 is a 50 inch 3D plasma TV and this product is also available in 42 inch size called Panasonic TC-P42GT25. The picture quality on both the TVs is the same and there are no major differences apart from the size of the TV. This is the second 3D TV from Panasonic for the year 2010. The previous one was a flagship model and the manufacturer had put in all possible features. Hence it was really expensive. For the Panasonic TC-P50GT25, the manufacturer has cut a few corners in order to keep the price low. The design of the TV is pretty lukewarm. There is nothing aesthetically appealing about this panel apart from the bronze brownish strip on the TVs bottom. The TV is glossy black and it is accompanied by a stylish stand which lets the display swivel on sides. Panasonic TC-P50GT25 is three and half inch thick on the sides which means this doesn’t have LED technology. I liked the feature set of this panel for the price that it is offered for. On the back, there are two  [...]

I have had tons of Bluetooth headsets in my labs and now they all have started to look the same. However, there is an exception once in a blue moon. For instance, I got the Plantronics Discovery 975 last year which had great audio quality and there was also the Aliph Jawbone Prime with awesome design. Aliph has been making a lot of research for making good quality Bluetooth headsets and hence this is my favorite Bluetooth headset company. I hold this company with high regards and this time, it looks like the Aliph has surpassed itself. Aliph Jawbone Icon that I got in my labs has plenty of designs to choose from and it looks like a museum piece. Also, it is the first Bluetooth headset to have operating system built-in. You can program the internal chip to give a richer experience than other Bluetooth headsets. For instance, there is a visual battery meter next to the one in your iPhone. That’s not all, this is the first Bluetooth headset I have ever seen to have Dial or Audio ‘apps’  [...]