LG Prada 3.0

Features:
The handset runs on Android Gingerbread, while an improve to Ice Cream Sandwich is due in the not-too-distant future. The specially created UI, steers clear of the usual vibrantly coloured graphics that you'd find on a smartphone screen, in its place opting for a more demure black, white and grey colour scheme.
This really does look slick, although the effect is somewhat ruined by the group of colourful pre-installed Google apps, and any apps that you download from Android Market will also come out in their usual colourful state.

The notification panel appears what time you touch and slide from the top of the screen - all you need to do to turn features on and off it tap the corresponding icons.

You'll get all the usual connectivity options including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0, along with NFC and LG's SmartShare DLNA which enables you to contribute to content between DLNA-enabled devices.

In terms of multimedia, the LG Prada 3.0 offers support for a fair amount of file formats (MPEG4, H.264 and DivX), although for other codecs such as .avi files you'll need to investigate around for a suitable playback app.For music, the handsets supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, EC3 and DTS.

Screen:
The large 4.3-inch TFT LCD screen is certainly inspiring and enough to match large screen phones such as the HTC Desire HD and the LG Optimus 3D. The display sports a decidedly average WVGA resolution of 800x480 along with NOVA high brightness technology, which means that the display is still readable even in bright daylight.

While the resolution is a little unsatisfactory on paper, the screen copes remarkebly well with web pages and video, with punchy colours and sharp edges and relatively smooth motion on touching images.

Camera:
The handset sports a rear-facing 8MP camera, with a reasonably zippy autofocus. You can also alter the focal point using an onscreen target that you can move simply by tapping the screen. There are various manual settings to desire from for ISO, white balance and scene modes, or you can just let the phone do the hard work and set it to auto.

There's also a front-facing, fixed-focus camera, which is opened robotically when you tap the camera button on the top of the handset. To switch to the rear-facing snapper, you just tap the icon on the top-left of the screen.

Pictures aren't bad, but they're certainly not the best we've seen and they don't evaluate to the snaps you'd get from the Apple iPhone 4S or Samsung Galaxy S2. As with a lot of camera phones, shooting in daylight produces decent enough results, but shots taken in low light be liable to be rather soft and lacking in detail.

We also originate the same with the full HD (1920x1080) video capture. Taken at 30fps, video footage looks good when shot in good lighting conditions, but suffers in a parallel way to still images in dwindling daylight.



Battery:
stuffing a 1540 mAh cell, the battery on the LG Prada Phone 3.0 is zero unique and we found that it did deplete quite rapidly throughout the day, so if you're using the phone a lot you've most likely want to take the charger out with you. Thankfully, the charger is nice and light and the battery charges up pretty rapidly once plugged in.

                           Read Full Specification and Price go LG Prada 3.0 Page

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Motorola ATRIX 2

Design:

Upon first glimpse at the Motorola Atrix 2 you can't tell a distinction between the previous version. The shapes are similar yet the subtle differences help bump up the Atrix 2. The gunmetal grey bezel around the front and a rubberized textured back give it a more upscale feel. You get a a little larger display, the Atrix 4G had a 4-inch qHD display and the Atrix 2 gets a slight jump up to a 4.3 qHD display. This also shows through with a much higher value display.

Around the boundaries of the phone are the Micro-HDMI and Micro-USB port, you got your volume rocker and the committed camera button, the 3.5mm headphone jack and the power button. You have a front-facing VGA camera for the video chats and the 8-megapixel camera on the back with the LED flash. Accessories for the Atrix 2 are extensive with the Motorola Lapdock 100, extra battery, vehicle steering dock, HD station, a portable universal charger, a wireless keyboard, and so much more.

Camera:

The 8-megapixel camera is a big step up from the 5-megapixel on the Atrix. The one downside was the shutter lag. It was almost a 4 second delay from button press to focus to picture taken. So you can prety much count this phone out for action shots.

The photo quality itself was inspiring. Sharp images with accurate colors, low-light photos did need a flash sometimes which would wash out some images. The Atrix 2 does come with 1080p HD video capture. The video quality was enormous however is was not without some shadowy images. You get 8GB of internal storage of which almost 4.5 is available to the user. It does come with a 2GB microSD care preinstalled, it can carry up to 32GB card.

Performance and battery life:

Testing out the call quality on the Atrix 2 we found it to be quite good. The callers could hear me quite well and the audio on our side was clear and plenty of volume. It wasn't perfect as some sizzle and slight distortion would occur but that might have been attributed to user location. Speakerphone value was solid as well and occasionally the people we were calling couldn't tell we were on a speakerphone.

With the battery you get a talk time of around 8.5 hours, standby time 15.9 days. That isn't a half bad battery life. As always your battery usage will vary depending on how solid you use your phone.

                       Read Full Specification and Price go Motorola ATRIX 2 Page

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Samsung Galaxy S II 4G

Introduction:

Do you happen to love the wistful specs associated with T-Mobile’s version of the Samsung Galaxy S II, but favor something a bit more form fitting in the hand and less expensive? Well then, the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G might be the device you’re after, not only for the easy reason it’s alike in the specs departments while maintaining a more compact figure, but it’s also going to be trail glowing with its speedy 42Mbps HSPA+ data connectivity. Although it’s technically still a part of the original Samsung Galaxy S line, it should prove to be a smoking addition, so let’s find out if it’s worth picking up.

Design:
In archetypal fashion, the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G exhibits the usual design distinctiveness akin to Samsung’s stable – meaning it’s all-plastic and very lightweight. amusingly, it actually looks similar to the BlackBerry Torch 9860, because of the way its bezel curves towards its top edge. Even though its overall design isn’t particularly polarizing over other things, above all, we’re enthralled most above its smaller footprint over the previous Samsung Vibrant and Galaxy S 4G, even more when it packs the same 4-inch sized display.

Display:
Surely enough, we still can’t get over the fact that this Blaze 4G is packing a 4-inch display, especially when its overall footprint is smaller than the previous models with such screen. Employing a WVGA (480 x 800) Super AMOLED display, we’re naturally engrossed by the poppy and saturated colors it’s able to deliver – while still maintaining clarity thanks to its wide viewing angles. Despite employing a PenTile matrix pact, it’s sharp enough to visibly see fine text with relatively few issues. All in all, it’s a beauty, but then again, that’s common thing associated this kind of panel.

    Read Full Specification and Price go Samsung Galaxy S II 4G Page

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Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S

Design:
The overall design of the Arc S is attractive pleasing as it comes in at a nicely thin 8.7 mm’s.  With a convex design, the device deservedly earns its Arc title.  And though the arced chrome arch is a bit of an optical illusion, making the device look even thinner than it is, it did the job and the hardware looks slim, sleek and offers an overall great modern design.  We reviewed the black model for the site, however, the device is also being offered in a nice white finish or sliver for those getting a bit tired of the everyday black slate.  Overall, the hardware of the device was satisfactorily sturdy.  The back plate of the device feels a bit “flimsy” at times but overall it was sturdy enough not to really pay attention to it much.  On top of the device you’ll find on the left hand side the power button.  For some odd reason SE went with a rather small round button (see pic), a little too small for our liking and not protruded enough. We found that our finger had to do a little song and dance to finally push the button all the way down effectively.  Still on the top, the right side hides an HDMI out port for video playback on the big screen or any other compatible device.  Also on the back plate you’ll find typical SE nomenclature such as the “Xperia” line name and SE’s green and silver logo.  While on the back still, we’ll note that there is an 8 mp camera accompanied by a single round LED flash.  The front side houses the 4.2-inch capacitive touch display (480 x 854 and (~233 ppi pixel density).  In addition, you’ll find “Sony Ericsson” across the top of the device and just under the receiver.  The device only sports three buttons at the bottom, shying away from the typical four button device we’re used to seeing.  And though it took some getting used to, the three button layout wasn’t all that bad and kept things simple.  Though at times I found myself begging for the search button.  Back, Home and Menu button’s are all that’s present, excluding the ever popular search button that you can use within particular apps and not just on the web.  Under those buttons you’ll see the “Xperia” name.  The left side of the device sports a 3.5 mm headphone jack and nothing else to show off its curves while the right side of the handset touts the charging port, volume rocker (kind of small) and dedicated camera key (two stage).  The bottom of the device offers a camera loop strap hole and microphone.

Battery:
Battery life on this device was astoundingly and pleasantly well.  It virtually took forever to run the device down for a recharge.  I immediately hopped onto my WiFi network upon receiving the handset as service was not readily available by AT&T.  The Arc S ships with a 1500 mah Li-Po battery which touts up to 460 hours of stand-by time and just over 7 hours of talk time.  During this review I can definitely attest that battery life was not an issue for this device. We think overall on a daily basis the handset should meet your needs and give you a good full day’s charge before having to hop back on the charging port.

Call Quality & Speaker Phone:
While we were unable to test the call quality due to a lack of an active SIM by AT&T, we can indicate that the speaker quality on the device wasn’t too bad.  We found some rough sounds here and there but otherwise the device played music cleanly and clearly for the most part.  I tested the audio using Amazon’s MP3 player app as well as the Google Music app of which I have several pieces of music stored in the cloud.  Overall, the device would serve well streaming at the office or at home attached to some hefty house speakers.

Performance:
presentation on the Arc S was equally surprising.  The device was quick and snappy thanks to the typical Sony Mobile Bravia Engine on board.  Details on web pages, pics and even menu’s were sharp and rich in color.  It’s no Super AMOLED Plus but it got the job done.  Navigating through the device was a pleasant experience as Sony has added some pretty cool and nifty animations to keep things interesting.  Movement of icons are extremely fluid and offer a bit of a bounce when changing home screens.  There, at times, were a bit of a slight lag in responding to the touch at and Im not entirely sure if it was due to the screen technology or not.  I suspect that it is.  Another neat feature is when you pinch to zoom on the home screen to get an overview look at all your walls/home screens, the apps, icons and widgets get all mixed up and cluttered together until you pic your desired app or widget, in which it then thrusts you to that home screen.  While in what I like to call “scrambled mode” you can even shake the device and watch all of the icons bounce around the screen like dice being rolled.  Scrolling and panning on web pages was pretty smooth and multi-touch functions rendered nicely on the device with nearly zero hiccups.  In addition, streaming Netflix and YouTube videos were great on the device thanks to the generous screen size and CPU.

Software:
As far as software goes, Sony has not left us desolate.  The device is running Android Gingerbread 2.3.4 with SE’s Time Scape overlay which offers a soft blue skin and SE’s Facebook layered application, giving you the option to easily update your status, add photos etc.  One cool featured I enjoyed, especially in my line of work, was the combination of a screen capture function right into the power button.  We’re used to seeing this more and more on devices, only usually you’ll have to hold the home & power button down to snap a shot.  Another noticeable upgrade was in the qwerty keyboard dept.  The new qwerty lay-out was pretty accurate and now integrates a “Swype-ish” style input method.  I actually enjoyed using it better than Swype as it offers a neat highlighted trail when swiping across the keys.  The technology was quick and accurate when typing text messages and long emails

Camera & Camcorder:
The 8 megapixel, single LED flashed camera worked great and took brilliant shots with the device, even in low lighting which can be a rare quality on a device.  SE usually produces decent cameras so there wasn’t much of a surprise in this dept.  I took some in-door shots of my individual Galaxy S II device and they rendered rather well despite the low lighting in my dining room.  As far as the software goes, it was a little lackluster but still offers everything you need to take great shots on the go.  An added feature by SE is the new 3D capturing capabilities.  in the face of it only having a single lens, the device offers the functionality of creating your own 3D content provided you have a 3D enabled big screen at home for playback.  And though I think 3D is still a bit of a gimmick and on its way out the door before it even took off, it’s nice to see SE add a little something new to their lineup.  In addition, like most devices whether on board or via a third party app, the Arc S offers the ability to take panoramic shots while on the go.

Read Full Specification and Price go Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S Page

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