Review: Motorola Xoom 2 Media Edition

The best-selling tablet on the market might be the 9.7-inch iPad 2, but that hasn't stopped manufacturers differentiating themselves using by going with a smaller screen size than Apple's offering. We've seen the likes of the original Samsung Galaxy Tab and the HTC Flyer in the past, but the Amazon Kindle Fire is the first seven-inch tablet to really make an impact.
Now we have the new Xoom tablets from Motorola, and not content with just releasing the 10.1-inch Xoom 2 to compete with the iPad, we've also got the 8.2-inch Xoom 2 Media Edition, which will end up head to head with the likes of the Kindle Fire.
If you're wondering what the difference is between the Xoom 2 and the Xoom 2 Media Edition other than size, the answer is pretty much nothing. Both are Android 3.2 tablets, with a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, a 1280 x 800 screen (yep, it's the same despite the different sizes) and 16GB of storage.

Well, there are a couple of other differences, we confess. As you might expect, a reduction in size also means a reduction in weight, and the Xoom 2 Media Edition weighs just 388g – even lighter than the Kindle Fire, which weighs in at 413g, and a lot lighter than the 599g of its big brother.
And, being smaller, the battery has had a big reduction in size in the Media Edition. In fact, it's been nearly halved from 7000mAh in the Xoom 2 to 3900mAh in the Media Edition, a drop that's reflected in the quoted battery life of 6 hours browsing over Wi-Fi.
There's also one notable loss when it comes to software: the impressive Floating Notes app is absent from the Media Edition. We realise that Motorola is making a point that the smaller tablet is more for home media use (hence the name), but since apps such as Citrix and Evernote are still present, we don't see why Floating Notes couldn't also have been including.

As you might expect, the price is different between the two models, too. The Media Edition comes in at around £319 – a marked saving over the 10.1-inch Xoom 2, or the likes of the iPad 2 or Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
Like the bigger Xoom 2, there's a five-megapixel camera on the back, capable of recording 720p HD footage, and a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front.

Unlike the bigger Xoom 2, though, it's pretty clear the Media Edition is intended to be used in portrait mode most of the time. Where the 10.1-inch version had its cameras, ports and infrared transmitter on the long edges of the device, with the controls on the short edge, the opposite is true here. The front-facing camera sits at the top short edge, like the iPad 2, with the controls on the long edge to the right.
Apart from this subtle change, the design of the Xoom 2 Media Edition stays really rather close to the 10.1-inch version. It's the same shape, with the same cut-outs in the corners.
They're as good as the same thickness, with the Media Edition coming in at 8.9mm thick (0.1mm thicker than the Xoom 2) and made of the same matte plastic, meaning that Media Edition is just as comfortable to hold the big Xoom 2, except it's much lighter – a winning combination.

Unfortunately, the front screen is still an appalling fingerprint magnet. The Xoom 2 was one of the worst we've seen for picking up smudges and grease, and things are no different here.
On the top edge of the Media Edition, you have the infrared transmitter and 3.5mm headphone jack, as well as a couple of speaker grilles. On the bottom of the device are the micro-USB and micro-HDMI ports, and another speaker grille. You've also got a flap that opens, but like the flap on the big Xoom 2, it goes nowhere. No SIM card slot and no microSD slot.

On the back you'll find the main camera and a shinier backplate that's actually held on with screws. Screws! We can't remember the last time we saw them so prominently on… anything, really, but they suit the look of the materials Motorola's used.

We only really have one issue with the Xoom 2's design, and that's the ridiculous placement of the Lock key and volume buttons. The big Xoom 2 has them hidden on the device's curves, much like the iPad 2, but on the Media Edition they're effectively on the back of the device.
This means that if the Xoom 2 Media Edition is on a table with it's screen off, there's no way to turn it on without picking it up. It may not seem like the biggest deal, but it really annoyed us, especially since it's compounded by the fact that these buttons actually aren't that easy to find and press without looking at them even if you are holding the tablet.

Tablets should be pick-up-and-go devices. There should be no fumbling to get the screen on or off, especially since the screen is all there is. It's still not quite a deal-breaker, but when other tablets manage to avoid this problem, it's definitely a mark against the Xoom 2 Media Edition.

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 Review

AT&T and Samsung have brought forth a tablet that adds to their set of sleek Android-based slates, this one the first to work with the carrier’s 4G LTE network. Inside you’ll find the rather powerful 1.5Ghz Qualcomm MSM8660 dual-core processor, Samsung’s custom user interface TouchWiz UX made specifically for tablets, and either 16 or 32GB or internal storage. You can take 3 megapixel photos and 720p videos with the back-facing camera, slightly less impressive media with the front-facing 2 megapixel camera. As this tablet is thin, so is it speedy, and as there are now more than four different models of tablet running Android from Samsung on the market today, surely they’ve gotten the formula correct enough to warrant such an array by now – wouldn’t you say?

Like its predecessors the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Galaxy Tab 7.7, the Galaxy Tab 8.9 is monumentally thin, and just as it was when we first laid eyes and hands on the pre-production build back at CTIA spring 2011, this tablet is a winner when it comes to industrial design. It’s simply lovely in its form, feeling like Samsung wanted to knock the tablet game out of the park with a simple set of matte black plastic along the back and silver plastic around the edge, with the entirety of the front being a tough layer of glass and a 1/2-inch border of black under the glass around the 8.9-inch display. This display is a PLS TFT capacitive touchscreen at 800 x 1280 pixel resolution and the whole device sizes in at 230.9 x 157.8 x 8.6 mm.

The display is no AMOLED, to be sure, but it is relatively bright and will suffice for your everyday indoor activities. This tablet is in a class with the iPad and the top-tier Androids when it comes to overall quality, and you’ll know good and well where your $479.99 (with a free phone) went when you’ve purchased it. This tablet is the ideal size for those of you wishing for a tablet that’s both compact but not so small to fit in your pocket, and certainly light and thin enough to keep in a purse. You’ll want to think about purchasing a case for the tablet if you’re carrying it around in your daily satchel, especially since you don’t want the screen to get all nicked up by keys and coins.

Again take a peek at our review of TouchWiz UX for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 to see what this device is running more in-depth, otherwise feel free to see the hands-on video we’ve got here to check the size difference. This version of TouchWiz is running a bit more smooth than it was on the 10.1 when it was first launched, and it’s certainly nice to have the screenshot feature at the bottom of the screen, but that bar sitting around at all times can get rather annoying. Where Android’s tablet-specific operating system version Honeycomb and the soon to be prevalent tablet and handset-based Ice Cream Sandwich both have the feature where these buttons fade down to nearly invisible when you don’t need them, Samsung has found it necessary to remind you that they’re there at all times with a dedicated bar. This takes away a bit of your screen space for taps as well as for viewing space, mind you, so you may well want to consider this when looking for that perfect tablet.

That said, if you’ve never used Android on a tablet before, you’ll probably not notice the difference as compared to even the most massive smartphone, this display will seem like a monster. That’s of course also assuming you’ve never held a tablet of any other kind either – you’ll want to compare this tablet to a set of other Samsung devices to choose your true size (for 8.9-inch displays and smaller, of course): Galaxy Note vs Galaxy S II vs Galaxy Tab 7.7. For my own personal use, I’ll stick with the Galaxy S II unless I’m playing some games, in which case I won’t need an internet connection and will of course want the Wi-fi version of the 8.9 instead of this LTE-connected slate we’re looking at today.

The shooter on the back of this device is decent for the 3 megapixels it packs. You won’t be collecting the same masterpieces your Galaxy Note and your Galaxy S II are rolling with, but for Facebook images and sharing on Google+, you should be ok.

Like most tablets these days, the battery on this device appears to be doing quite well. You’re working with a 6100 mAh lithium ion non-removable unit here, and since that’s pretty massive and you’re not going to be using this device nearly as much as you do a smartphone, you’ll be good for AT LEAST a full day’s work and play. When you’re running streaming video, you’ll be slightly less successful with around 7-8 hours. Enough for a few movies on a long car ride. Playing high-demand games will yield similar results, but in the upper 9-10 hour area if you’ve started with a full battery.

Have a peek at the LTE speeds as recorded in a real live AT&T 4G LTE city, one of the few in the united states today. Note that this device can also access AT&T’s much larger HSPA+ network which also goes relatively quick.

What you’ve gotta know right this second about the first hands-on your humble narrator did on this device is that I was a complete idiot and made the device look like a wanker because I didn’t realize it was downloading a ton of apps all at once. You can head back to that post and leave some incendiary comments, or have a look at a much more accurate hands-on demonstration here. No bugs found!
Samsung appears to be trying for every single size device here in the smart mobile world, with 10.1-inches, 8.9, 7.7, 7, 5.3, 5, 4.65, 4.52, 4.5, 4.3, and the list goes on and on. No matter what you want, Samsung has you covered in AT LEAST the display size department. The Galaxy Tab 8.9 is the nicest size I’ve seen for playing games – not too big, not too small, but I must admit I’ve not personally held the 7.7 in my hands yet, so we’ll see how that ads up when it does.

As far as connections go, Samsung doesn’t seem too concerned with allowing you to hook up to anything but your personal computer via the USB cord they include – and note, this isn’t a microUSB cord, it’s one unique to Samsung’s tablet line. You can purchase peripherals like the USB connector you can see in your humble narrator’s review of a wireless gamepad controller on Android Community, but they all come separate. You can also plug in a headphone cord at the top of this tablet, but other than that, you’ll be picking up extra converters to connect. Then it all comes down to size when deciding, otherwise it’s the same great Samsung tablet you saw with the original Galaxy Tab 10.1.

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Samsung Galaxy Note LTE made official

Samsung has officially announced the Galaxy Note LTE, the version of its pen-enabled 5.3-inch Android smartphone packing 4G connectivity. Initially expected to go on sale in South Korea, a Verizon launch in the US is not outside the realms of possibility, though the carrier has not yet commented on whether it will be offering the handset.

In fact, the Galaxy Note isn’t currently available in the US at all, though the quadband UMTS/HSPA support does mean that the existing European model will work with AT&T’s network. In our Galaxy Note review, we found the smartphone/tablet hybrid to offer considerably greater stylus precision than HTC’s pen-enabled Flyer, while the 1.4GHz dual-core processor and 720p HD display added up to an excellent multimedia and gaming device.

Meanwhile, Samsung has released the S-Pen SDK, the software toolkit allowing Android app developers to take advantage of the stylus input on the Note. The smartphone is expected to get an Ice Cream Sandwich update in the first half of 2012, though it’s unclear how Samsung’s pen APIs will co-exist with the native pen support in Android 4.0.

Samsung Galaxy Note S-Pen:



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Acer Iconia Tab A200 video promo leaks

What looks to be the first video promo for Acer‘s new Iconia Tab A200 tablet has leaked, billing the Android slate as an ideal way to consume and share multimedia. Yet to be officially announced, though spotted in a user-profile among the support data on Acer’s site, the A200 is expected to be a budget tablet still running NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 rather than the newer quadcore Tegra 3 chipset.

Also among the hardware tipped is a 1280 x 800 display, Bluetooth 2.0 and a microSD card slot, while the video tips a USB port capable of mounting external drives to access media stored on them. There’s no record for an Acer Iconia Tab A201, the company’s usual nomenclature for 3G-enabled variants, which suggests that WiFi is the only flavor of tablet in this particular series.
Similarly unclear is OS version, with Acer giving no indication of whether the Iconia Tab A200 will run Android 3.x Honeycomb or 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Acer looks to have modified the US itself anyway, with different icon graphics. Earlier this month, the Iconia Tab A500 and Iconia Tab A700 series slates leaked, each running Tegra 3.



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Awesome EXOdesk has interactive 40-inch touchscreen embedded

You can put a 40-inch touchscreen on top of your desk if you are so inclined, but the cool EXOdesk is the first piece of furniture I have seen with a big 40-inch touchscreen inside the desk surface. The geeks over at TheLongClimb have a bunch of photos of the EXOdesk along with some of the interactive screens that the big touch panel in the surface can show.

The EXOdesk comes from EXOpc, the company behind the tablet that looked interesting last year. According to the details, the 40-inch touchscreen has 10-point touch and 1080p resolution. The viewing angles are supposed to be 178-degrees and it will be shown off at CES in January. The manufacturer of that display device is being kept secret, but is supposed to be well known.
This reminds me more than a little of Microsoft Surface. The desk will run apps made using HTML5. The surface will have touchpad zones and a keyboard that can be changed for use by anyone. A dev kit is available with JavaScript extensions and more. EXOdesk can be used with a PC or as a second screen for your existing computer. The price for the EXOdesk is said to be $1299. The desk won’t launch at the show but the launch is promised for 2012.


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Batman: Arkham City PC Review

When you speak about Batman: Arkham City, you speak about not only the next chapter in a line of games that’ve redefined the superhero genre of video games, but have taken the ultra-immersive nature of the detective / puzzle solving game and have made it intuitive enough to be enjoyable for all – and the graphics are absolutely unmatched. What we’ve got here is a rig provided by NVIDIA to test this game specifically, an Alienware M17xR3 gaming laptop with a GeForce GTX 580 DirectX 11 GPU inside, this along with the newest set of NVIDIA 3D Vision 2 wireless 3D glasses. It’s a very GREEN situation, needless to say, and playing the most advanced game on the market with the most impressive graphics processor on the planet, this is almost a no-brainer.

The storyline here is one that takes place some months after the prison madness of Batman: Arkham Prison, the first game in this series. What’s gone on since then is the city government of Gotham City has created a walled-in miniature town in which all the criminals that would otherwise have been sent to the asylum for the criminally insane have been confined – this city is called Arkham City. This and the fact that a set of corrupt police officers under the orders of the fellow who’s been left in charge of the city have tossed Bruce Wayne in the city to fend for himself make this storyline appear rather familiar.

This is a re-written version of Escape from New York (or Escape from Los Angeles, if you prefer), and Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, is Snake Plissken. Once you’ve been pulled into the city by the sinister Hugo Strange, who is running the city in this storyline, your goal is to continue the investigation you started before you were captured – and with your endless arsenal of gadgets, abilities, and skills in both the combat and detective arenas, you’ll have more than an engaging time doing so. The story does aim at making this a quintessential Batman game as it does appear to try to contain each and every one of the main villains, but of course its unlikely nature is easily trumped by the vastness of the environment and your complete freedom in exploring all of your possibilities.

This is a Batman story, and because it takes on the story started in the first Arkham game and expands upon it by literally turning the asylum into an entire city, it’s great. And not only do you get to move through the main storyline, there are side-stories and tasks you can attain as well. And of course, what good game centered around a city would be complete without Grand Theft Auto free-play, your ability to explore nearly without limit!

When you play this game, you are Batman. You’ll want to put on your movie-quality Batman mask and put on the sharp gloves because you’ll feel like you’re the real deal. You play the part of the real detective Batman, the one with vast sets of maps, decoding tools, and your trusty pal Alfred Pennyworth (aka Bruce Wayne’s butler and Batman’s most valuable helper, for those of you unfamiliar). You also play the part of the fully equipped Batman, complete with every little Bat-tool you’ve ever heard of. Fly to the tops of buildings with your Line Launcher pulling you from the ground all the way up, glide around the town with your cape-cum-Bat-Glider, and traverse the landscape as you discover the ever-changing set of situations in the whole of Arkham City.

You’ve got levels on top of levels of ways to interact with your environment, from punching a bad guy in the face to attaching a line to a horizon scaffold to lower yourself down on top of the enemy head-first. You can attack a villain from above, flipping down to knock him out with your boot. You can make a glide-attack from a half-mile above a group of gangsters directly to a fellow’s face. Toss your Remote Controlled Batarang and make it flip and fly from your hand down the aisle, around the corner, and under a table to hit a notorious fellow in the kneecap. You will know the meaning of a diverse set of views and controls when you work here in the city.

You’ll want to choose your controls wisely. The folks who make the game have some special edition Batarang controllers you can use, but know this: there are many ways. When you see the demonstration video you’ll see your humble narrator using the keyboard on the laptop and a plain ol’ two-button and a scroll wheel mouse. You’ve got many choices, to say the least.

Again I must say that this is far and away the most aesthetically voluptuous video game I’ve ever played, and with the setup I’ve got running here there’s no waiting for anything. Flowing cape, purple haze, and masses of bats haunt your vision as you move through a very real (yet virtual, believe it or not) world of Arkham City. You’ll walk across a collapsing set of poles over motel metal, gaze over the masses of buildings complete with weather, and move in and out of cinematics without even a moment’s delay.

When you fight a set of gangsters, you’ll know you’ve beaten them all because whichever ends up being your final punch or kick is swiftly zoomed in on shown in ultra slow-motion. It’s just lovely. Have a peek at the enhancements you’ll be working with should you play this game with the same GPU we’re having a look at here – lots more floaties!
I played this game in 3D with the NVIDIA 3D Vision 2 wireless 3D glasses you see in the hands-on video. Notice in the video that you’re not seeing in 3D — that’s not because the 3D glasses don’t work, its because the camera can’t translate the effect. What you’re seeing instead is one of two frames that the glasses would otherwise send to your two eyes for the full 3D effect. And that effect is good. Where I’m by no means a fan of the 3D era we’re in right this moment, these glasses fit my face, the lenses cover my eyes adequately, and I don’t get a headache like I did with the ol’ blue and red glasses or these no-glasses 3D effects we’re seeing with some smartphones this past year.
Those are nasty, this is undeniably good.

This game is the one rig giants will be using as their go-to for “look at how amazing this machine is” for quite some time, without a doubt. The folks at Rocksteady Studios have done a fantastic job of both developing and delivering the game, this including promoting the game with several offers on each different iteration of the game – like Gamestop where you’ll find the reviews sitting at 10 out of 10 almost without end. This game is out now for several platforms including Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, but as this PC version is without a doubt the most aesthetically powerful, this is the one you should get. Suit up now.

And know this – as with all of our reviews here on SlashGear of products like smartphones, tablets, computers of all types, and even the tiniest of remote control vehicles, you’re welcome to continue to ask questions throughout the future that your humble narrator (or whoever did each particular review) will do their best to answer. In other words – what else do you want to know?

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Acer Veriton Z2620G all-in-one PC Review

The brand new Acer Veriton Z2620G is a lovely all-in-one machine that’s meant to look nice on your desktop at home or in the office. What you’ll notice in this machine that sets it aside from the rest of the pack is its ability to impress even before the cool green-lit on button is pressed. You’ll be running Windows 7 professional out of the box, but what you get when you run it is so so much more. This isn’t the highest spec-having computer in the world, but it’s definitely worth a double-take look for the cash it costs. Is this your new desktop computer for the next 2 years or so? Let’s have a look!

You’ll immediately have a bit of a smile on your face with a status identifying colored set of lights around the power/sleep button in the center bottom front of the unit. This button is able to put your whole machine asleep, turn it off and on, and will let you know what mode your machine is in at any given time. The entire machine is ready to go out of the box on the hardware side, but will require that you click through a set of yes, ok, ok, yes updates once you turn it on for the first time. Once you’ve got the whole thing set up, you’ve really got the whole machine here in one, and if you’re not the kind of person who minds the most basic set of controllers (mouse and keyboard) on earth, you won’t even need those as they’re contained in the box as well.

That said, the keyboard and mouse are the most basic of the basic, clunky keys and lightest plastic available contained within. These should be assumed to be only for the setup of the machine unless this is your first personal computer, in which case you’ll have a great time upgrading when the time is right. The display does not leave one wanting, brightness and viewing angles superb and top of the line, and the built-in speakers are certainly enough to tide over a single person using the machine for movies, music, and other media on their own. You’ll need some 3rd party speakers if you want to use this device as a media center for parties and movie showings, if you know what I mean. That said, the entire unit works perfectly with the Warpia StreamHD unit we also received this week, an few clicks in a couple of setup screens and we had 720p video feeding into the HDTV without trouble. Read more about this situation in our full review of the StreamHD.

This computer certainly is not the king of gaming, but it’ll play all your favorites with basically no hitches in the least. The only drawback here is that you’ll have to use regular old 15-pin cable connector if you want to go up to a larger display — but again why would you want to when this computer will roll out with as much high definition on its own lovely display anyway?
System - Acer Z2620G Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 42 Stepping 7
Above take a peek at what we’re working with, then head down to the benchmark score chart from Geekbench and get your comparison on.
You’ll be running whichever version of Windows (or Linux, or whatever other oddball OS you’ve got in mind) with total success, and as this machine does come with Windows 7 pre-loaded, you’ll be off and running right out of the box. Inside the set of applications you receive will be sufficient for word processing and any and all of your homework or basic office needs, and as this computer runs a perfectly sufficient set of hardware bits behind the scenes, you’ll be able to run whatever other 3rd party applications you need without trouble as well. For you gamers out there, NVIDIA is under the hood, so you know good and well that you’ll be able to roll out with any of the top games in the market right now with a top of the line graphics experience.
Benchmark Score - Acer Z2620G SectionDescriptionScoreTotal ScoreWindows x86 (64-bit) - Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)Processor floating point performance
The interface is swift, never once have I had to force an application to close, and running multiple monitors with the methods we’ve got available here has been perfectly successful.
For those of you that are wondering, I’ve not been working on a desktop computer now for several years. It’s a testament to the quality that Acer has cultivated here that I say that this all-in-one PC could easily continue to sit at the end of my desk and see daily use, even though I use my 15-inch notebook computer for most of my everyday work. The computer is by no means light, and certainly isn’t mean to be carried around with one to and from the office on the daily, but as the back bracket does fold down and the entire unit can be carried with two hands (cords and all), this isn’t the least transportable desktop computer on the block.

It’s an impressively designed computer that attains cleanliness and an overall nice look without the display even being on that attains such accolades without falling into the same trap many manufacturers often do these days: ripping off Apple. Instead Acer continues to keep their PC heads high making a modern machine which will impress even the most steadfast desires to look as good on the outside as it does on the in. That said, the inside does, again, work quick and nice, so no worries on that front.

This computer was out of the box and up and running inside 30 minutes, and I’m no brilliant mastermind when it comes to non-Macs. I use a MacBook Pro for my daily activities because it does exactly what I need it to do and I’ve been using OS X for coming on 10 years in a row now — but Acer, what have you done? You’ve played a part in convincing me that Windows machines, the ones that turned me off of the idea that owning a desktop computer was a good idea for what I thought was forever, have now come to a point where I don’t even really care what operating system I’m running, the hardware being enough to leave a good impression on its own.
While I’ll be waiting until Windows 8 until I can really give the whole Microsoft world another shot as a day-to-day primary OS, this machine is already at the forefront of my mind as far as how I’ll be running with the devil when the time comes. It’s too bad this computer doesn’t have a touch screen or I’d never give it back — Acer, can you outfit it? Windows 8 on the horizon!

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HTC Ville image leaks, reveals ultra thin Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone

A new and more detailed image of the HTC Ville has surfaced today, revealing what may be HTC’s thinnest smartphone yet. The device is said to measure in at less than 8mm thin and will sport Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, powered by a dual-core processor. It was first revealed earlier this month with a rendering from BGR and tipped for a February 2012 launch.

The HTC Ville is expected to feature a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display with qHD resolution that slightly wraps around the edges. Some of the main specs revealed so far include a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor and an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with higher-quality optics capable of 1080p HD video capture. Other specs include HSPA+ connectivity, Beats Audio support, and a decent sized 1,650 mAh battery.

It will run HTC Sense 4.0 on top of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and will likely launch under a different name, as HTC Ville is said to be only a codename. The device is expected to debut in mid-February at Mobile World Congress before it begins shipping in April.

XtremeMac Tango TRX Review

The iPod dock by the name of XtremeMac Tango TRX has been out for some time now, having been first announced all the way back in 2010, but it’s no worse for wear with the 2011 holiday season rapidly approaching, and since we’ve never had a look at it before and there’s a brand new bit of functionality now with Google Music out of beta, let’s have a look, shall we? This device comes with several parts – first being the main speaker complete with iPod dock which can house anything from the tiniest iPod to the iPad 2, though I wouldn’t recommend the latter as it does block a bit of the sound blast and isn’t exactly held the most securely in place. Then there’s the bit that makes this whole thing unique: the second docking station, one that allows you to charge the device on one side of the house while the speaker jams music out at the other.

The whole setup here is a matte black with orange accents, and the build is nearly top quality in all places. Much of the outsides here in this set of items is plastic, this both proving to be good in that it’ll bounce back if you drop it and wont damage the floor of your dorm or apartment, and bad in that you won’t get many “oh sweet, what is THAT you’ve got there?” comments. No worries though, this speaker setup is high quality, working both in party-level sound blast loudness and silent tuning to perfection for your exacting musical tastes. To make these adjustments you’ve only to download the free application from the iTunes App Store (for iPod Touch, iPad, or iPhone), and fire it up, controlling the speaker either by docking your device or by connecting via Bluetooth. There’s also a tiny remote control included if you’re more apt to docking the iDevice and stepping back from the action with as small a controller as possible.

One of the comments Chris Davies made when this product was originally announced was that it was quite enticing in that it didn’t actually require you to dock your iDevice to make it play the beats you had controlled from said device. Truly this is a pro as should you be wanting to play your music in one part of the house and are walking to and fro putting away dishes or doing the laundry, you can stop anywhere, pop that iPhone out of your pocket, and flip to the next song. It’s a testament to XtremeMac that I’m fairly certainly I’ll not ever be able to give a mobile device dock a positive review in the future unless its got the ability to connect to the device in question via Bluetooth. Anything less is just uncivilized!
You can play any audio you’ve got ringing out of your iDevice through this speaker, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that since Google Music recently left Beta and now allows everyone free storage of up to 200,000 songs on their own servers, we’d check out how to make it happen here. What we’ve got here is two options: first, you can access Google Music by heading to music.google.com in your web browser window on your iDevice and play some songs like that. Second, and this is the one demonstrated here in the video, is an app by the name of gMusic.

This app allows you essentially the same interface that your Android pals now have for Google Music and connects you instantly with all 200,000 of your songs just so long as you’ve got a Wi-fi connection (or simply a data connection if you’re using an iPhone, of course.) Tap into the fun and fire up a Weird Al track if you should so dare. You can pick this unit up today at Best Buy for a cool $100 USD, lucky you!

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Hands on: Ice Cream Sandwich review

Ice Cream Sandwich, or Android 4.0, is the next release from Google to help it keep its position at the sharp end of the smartphone market.
Designed to bring its phone and tablet operating systems together, ICS features a huge amount of new code from Google to create new features, easier methods of use and more.
Let's dive in and see what the software is all about in our hands on: Ice Cream Sandwich Android 4.0 review.
Google has done a lot more with the home screen than ever before, offering up more interactive widgets (plus the ability to resize them as well) with over 30 offered up from launch, with a glut more to come.
Google has said that it wants the main theme of ICS to be customisation, allowing users to be as in-depth or minimalist as they like. To that end, the physical buttons are now gone, employing a Honeycomb-like set of soft buttons at the bottom of the screen.

The menu system has also been given an overhaul as well, with tabs now offering access to both apps and widgets, making it easier to add in the latter options without needing to mess about with long pressing on the home screen.

Folders are also now even easier to create, be it for games, contacts or apps that contain the letter 'z'. Simple drag an icon on top of another and the folder is simply created, with another tap allowing you to rename it. The first three icons of its contents are displayed as a marker too, making it easier to see what's what.

Oh, and you can finally take screenshots too (if you've seen any of our reviews, you'll appreciate how much of a relief this is). Simply hold the down volume key and the power button for a couple of seconds and you'll get a handy animation to let you know what's on screen has been saved to the gallery.
Android has always been built on a system of being able to flit from one app to another with ease, and that's now even simpler in Ice Cream Sandwich.

There's a new UI that's used throughout the OS, with a list of tiles showing which apps are open and their most recent content to help you recognise what's going on. If you want to 'kill' an app, simply swipe it to the side and it will be terminated.

This seems eerily reminiscent of the Cards system employed by the soon-to-be defunct webOS from Palm, so we hope we're not going to see yet another patent war started up by Google.
On the Galaxy Nexus the process was much faster than with the similar UI employed on the Honeycomb OS, with apps opening and shutting at high speed.
Notifications have been improved once again by Google, with the addition of the sort of widgets we've only seen on customised UIs now present.
For instance, music can now be controlled from anywhere on the phone with a drag down of the notifications bar, plus contacts will now have their picture added should they send you a text or if you've missed a call from them.

Like the multi-tasking UI, you can also flick any notification to the right to easily get rid of it, making it easier to clean up your list of alerts.

The bar is also now available from the lock screen as well, should you simply be unable to wait to get into your phone to see who may have texted you or shuffle a track.
The contacts app for Ice Cream Sandwich has undergone a big visual change compared to older versions of the OS.
Like before, you can have multiple social networks linked into one person, making it simple to keep up to date with their actions and movements on the go.

And now if you swipe left or right to go to the new favourites view, you'll get high-res picture versions of your buddies - and if they're connected into Google+, you'll get even more rich information, like if the phone number changes online, it will sync up with your contacts too.

You can also view all their updates in one place, in a standardised version of the likes of TimeScape or FriendStream, making it easier to keep up to date with specific people on the go.
Google promised to keep updating the keyboard on its new versions of Android, and once again it's come up with a new version of the software - and it's pretty good.
There's not a whole heap of visual changes, bar the predictive suggestions: these have been dropped to just three per word, making it easier to select the word you're after.

Smaller, more subtle vibrations have also been added to each keypress to make it easier to register inputs... we tested this out and it doesn't seem that different to normal haptic feedback, to be honest.
The accuracy is excellent too on the new keyboard, with even fudge-fingered attempts at writing yielding almost perfect accuracy. Speech to text is also enhanced, with real time feedback - no longer do you have to wait until you've finished speaking to see what the phone thinks you said, with the cloud-based prediction delivering results as you speak.
It worked well over Wi-Fi, but we'll be interested to note how well it works when it comes to 3G network speeds, as Google hinted it had integrated this functionality thanks to the proliferation of 4G signal in the US.
This is one of the 'fun' features Google has popped in to the new OS, making it easy to unlock the phone using facial recognition.
Google says it's the fastest way to unlock the screen, and it is pretty nifty, with our demo showing the OS is pretty astute at recognising which face is which without accidentally letting a doppelganger open your phone.

Google admits a really large, high res photo of the person could feasibly unlock your phone, but it says it has put huge amounts of time into making sure this is really difficult to achieve.
In fairness, it's meant to be a fun feature - if you're that bothered about safety, put a PIN lock on and leave it at that, as we like this idea a lot.
Google has overhauled the browser again with Ice Cream Sandwich, bringing with it some nifty new features.
One bugbear we've always had has been erased, with the ability to switch between mobile and desktop versions of sites through an option in the menu, which is handy when you want to watch videos and the like.

Chrome will automatically sync bookmarks with the phone as well, if you're logged in on both devices at once, making it easier to take your favourites with you on the go.
And another huge feature we wish more phones would employ: offline reading. Should you want to wander underground but still want to check out the best of the web, an option in the menu will allow you to save articles to read later.
Other features, like the ability to see your top most visited pages being more prevalent, are also included - we're looking forward to giving the browser a full shakedown in our full Ice Cream Sandwich review.
The camera is arguably the biggest upgrade on Ice Cream Sandwich, coming with a number of features to help the handsets using it take on the might of the iPhone 4S.

Although obviously hardware dependent, the promise of super quick snaps seems to be true, with Apple-like speeds of photography possible with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
Other boosts include a very fast facial recognition system, making it easy to focus on friends, plus a tap to focus meter meaning you can choose where the phone's sensor should be looking.
Sharing the photos is easier too, as through the preview pane users can simply tap to share the pic through any relevant app installed on the phone - with an open API for devs to plug into easily, according to Google.
Panorama mode has been widely discussed already, but it's very easy to use - simply enable the option in the settings and swirl the phone around. We've used this on a number of devices before, but with instructions like 'moving too fast' it makes it much easier to capture a wide view.

Photo editing is on board too, but we didn't really get a chance to spend a long time with this feature... although the idea of tarting up faces on camera using 'Face Glow' is something we've laughed at before on LG handsets... let's see if Google can do any better.
Oh, and one more fancy feature: when recording video, you can tap on the shot to take a picture in full resolution, which won't make a noise but instantly saves to your gallery. Nifty.
Google's Ice Cream Sandwich is a real step forward for an operating system, both on tablets and phones.
We're really impressed with the way the search giant has thought about making the interaction that much slicker - one of the criticisms of previous iterations of the OS has been the complexity of use, but now more things are where you actually expect them to be.
We're impressed with the boosts to areas like the camera and people tab, things users regularly interact with - although we wonder how many people will actually bother to link up all their friends to get the maximum use from the app.

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Microsoft Security Essentials 2012 Review

The latest in my series of reviews of free 2012 antivirus programs is for Microsoft’s Security Essentials. This free antivirus program has been available for about two years now and thats how long its been since I last looked at it. Back in 2009 I thought it was an excellent security program. Has that changed?
Microsoft Security Essentials is of course provided to you by the same company that likely wrote your operating system. With that in mind, they ought to know what they are doing!

Installation and first impression
Protecting your computer with Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is a remarkably quick and easy affair. Simply surf over to the appropriate page on the Microsoft site and follow the simple instructions. (You will of course need to ensure that you have a genuine copy of Windows installed because they check!)

The actual program itself is small and downloads very quickly; seconds in my case. After double clicking the install file you can expect to have a completed installation within a minute or so. As soon as the program is installed it will update itself so you don’t need to worry about your protection being out of date.
As you can see in the image above, the interface is very sparse and simple which has both its good points and its bad.
Features
Whilst MSE is a little light on features it does still have a lot to offer, including:

• Antivirus protection
• Windows firewall integration
• Rootkit protection
• Network inspection system

System Requirements

• Microsoft Security Essentials has the following system requirements:
• Windows XP SP3 / Vista SP1 / Windows 7
• 500 Mhz processor , 256 MB RAM for XP / 1000 Mhz processor & 1 GB RAM for Vista and 7
• 200 MB of hard drive space free
• An internet connection
• A genuine copy of your Windows operating system

+ Plus Points

• It doesn’t cost anything
• Scheduled scans cap CPU usage at 50%
• Independent tests show detection rates that are good rather than stellar

- Minus Points

• Its simplicity means that there are less features on offer than in many other free antivirus programs
• Ad hoc scans, at least on my machine, took much longer than any other AV program I’ve looked at this year
• Free only extends to 10 PCs for business users

Conclusion
I guess my overall feeling here is that MSE is simply ok. Some people may like its simplicity whilst others may desire more features (that other free antivirus programs do provide). It works well enough, though sometimes scanning does seem to take much longer than with other alternative programs.
I would imagine it would be a very good choice for someone who uses the internet very infrequently because it would be easy for them to setup but even some other novice users may just want more than what it offers.
Considering the rumours of this being bolted into Windows 8 I do wonder about its long term effectiveness – if the vast majority of the worlds’ computer users are using the same security program then that is going to make one juicy target…

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