Review : The Huawei Ascend Mate 7. A big phone on a small budget.
Nov 28
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Reviewing Samsungs UD970 4k Display.
Sep 30When Samsung offered us the chance to review the UD970 we didn’t have to think about it for long. Getting ones hands on a 4k monitor to gawk at was something we wanted to try out since the very moment Samsung presented the model at IFA in Berlin this year.
“Spec-porn”
The UD970 comes in a box .. a BIG box .. a box that is usually reserved for big things like snow plows, space shuttles and big tv’s. Granted , it would have been a bad idea to ship the 31.5 inch display in a paper bag .. So the big box was a good idea. The difference between the UD970 and a Snow plow is the fact that the former has a much higher resolution. Where classic TV screens of this size have to find their limit at a resolution of 1920 by 1080 (Full HD) the UD970 goes almost up to infinity .. But not beyond. A 4k resolution of 3840 by 2016 means that ‘theoretically’ the screen real estate of a 31 inch 4K display is about the same as a 62 inch TV screen .. on a theoretical full HD resolution. And it still fits on your desk (but it might not fit in your budget)
We thought that we would be confronted with a behemoth of a box where you need to puzzle apart 24 pieces of styrofoam , but the UD970 is nicely packaged and taking it out we noticed the very simple and elegant design . A stable base, slim neck and thin bezel mark the fact that this monitor not only shines in resolution, but also in design. When inspecting the ports we noticed that this monitor can also ROTATE ! Spontaneous hallucinations of ‘Triple screen portrait monitor setups’ flooded our mind .. But there would be limitations in our budget .. and the number of pixels both a graphics card and the human mind can handle … Without melting down in a puddle of high resolution 4k blubber.
“Hooking it up”
Speaking of puddles .. getting this baby to work was a little bit of a challenge. We hooked it up to the latest and greatest 15 inch Macbook pro (with its high end graphics card) to see just how OK , 4K was … We had some trouble. Hooking it up to the Tunderbold display port with an HDMI adapter ( the UD970 has HDMI, Display port and classic DVI ports) we were disappointed that the maximum resolution we got was a mere 1600 by 900 (according to our Mac). This made the screen look bad. Fuzzy images and obese fonts .. not something we liked. Things got better after we hooked the display straight to our HMDI port .. The result was like staring into oblivion .. ‘Double-HD’ on this 31 inch display is massive .. So massive its hard to comprehend .. there is SO MUCH ROOM on your screen. Opening up ANY document to full-screen will be a thing of the past. The amount of screen real estate will have you working with tiled windows all the time since you can place so many of them. You will need to “crane your neck” from time to time since you need to cover the full 31 inches of screen right in front of your nose.
“Not your average holiday catalogue”
The colours and crispness of the screen is very very good for a Samsung display. Where the Oled displays of their smartphones and tablets have over saturated colours and brightness (That make an obituary look like a summer holiday magazine) Samsung has “toned down” the “WHOOOW” factor to resemble something that is more toned towards reality. The matt display, high resolution, thin bezel and slick design give this screen the potential to match or even outclass Apple’s expensive cinema display line.
“Dinero mucho baby ? “
We haven’t received and official price yet but at the rumored 2000 dollars pricerange this screen is going to be outside the budget range of the average user. The high resolution does require a hefty graphics card (Even our Mac had some trouble) but what you get in return is pretty slick. We shipped the display back to Samsung with mixed feelings .. After getting used to it , i’m pretty sure I would miss the display if I had to miss it .. But I would also miss the car I had to sell in order to get the money to BUY the UD970 in the first place. This display is something for the high end users (or the ones without girlfriends who live in their parents basement). That way they can watch their own My Little Pony marathon on a massive display .. with crisp colors, sharp text, lots of ports and a slim base.
Now excuse us as we drudge back to our 14 inch CRT display with a maximum resolution of 640×480 and watch the world in 8-bit.
Link : The UD970
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Bike-wise Kickstarter Kicks (By Matthew Deboysere)
Apr 07Biweekly I go through Kickstarter and try to find some interesting projects that you just must back. I have backed 21 projects since February 2011. My strategy is simple: I just cruise through the pages until I find something I like. Sometimes I search for keywords. Earlier this week for example I tried “bike”. I am someone who never takes a bus and doesn’t have his driver’s license, so whenever I need to be somewhere, I go by bike. And I like to pimp my modern stallion with all these exclusive gadgets I find on Kickstarter.
After the “Better Bicycle Bell, made in the USA”, which I received two months ago and is really loud – although nobody cares, stupid tourists – I ordered the Zondo Firefly Bag. I ride my bike during nights a lot and sometimes I just don’t feel safe. During the weekend there are a lot of drunk people behind their steering wheel and I tend to ride near the beach because cars aren’t allowed there. But with the Zondo, I have a compact and really cool looking backpack which you can use for casual riding or for professional use. It has a pocket which can hold your bladder bag in case you need to take a pee on your bike – no thanks – and it has a switch that lights up a strip on the front side of the bag.
The Zondo will be made in the United Kingdom and only costs you 40 GBP if you want it in any colour you like. If you want the basic blue one, then they ask you to pledge 30 GBP, which is actually a great bargain. The problem is that they just reached the 50 percent mark, and they only have 18 days to go. It’s not a product that a lot of people need, because mostly bicycle lights should suffice, but if you want to feel more safe – and need a new cool rucksack, then this is something to go for.
Another interesting bicycle project on Kickstarter is the Fietsklik line of transportation accessories. The Dutch people of Fietsklik have invented The Click that goes over your bicycle rack. It needs some basic mounting, but once you’ve found the right spot you can click some awesome accessories on it. As a miniature wargaming enthusiast, I have a large backpack with all my figurines ready to go, but I also have a big crate with other stuff that I usually need. So I am particularly looking forward to the Crate. You slide it on the Click, push it locked and turn the key to secure it. It can hold all your groceries and even a big crate of beer! They have tested it for several years and it looks really legit – although we will never forget we are paying to support an idea, not to buy a product. Sometimes they fail. But I feel confident about this one.
The people at Fietsklik also want to launch three types of bags that you can attach to the Click easily. The Click allows you to attach three accessories at the same time – two bags and the Crate – but also is looking into a child seat. They have finished the prototype and are looking into getting it checked and certified. You can pledge to get one, but you will receive the seat only at least in April 2015. All the other accessories will launch in July 2014.
If you pledge 99 USD, you will receive the Click and the Crate, which is an awesome deal. The crate also can be folded up to be more compact and has an extendable handle and wheels. Ideally you will shop with your Crate and mount it quickly on the back of your bike. Cool! Need more space? It will cost you 149 USD but you will receive the Click and two accessories of your choice. That can be two crates, or two bags, or one of each. And for 199 USD you will receive the Click and the Crate, and can choose two bags. If you’re quick, there are still some early birds available. Fietsklik has already surpassed their target. They are at 150 percent right now. It’s a solid investment if you need easy transporting on your bicycle and hate tying several bags on your steering wheel.
Links.
Matthew Deboysere is a video game journalist for several Belgian media. Is the co-founder of G.Mag, a free digital gaming magazine, but left for a new adventure. Previously wrote for GUNK and 9lives. Loves video games with a great story that reduces him to tears. And cat videos.
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kw705 : Reviewing the Samsung Galaxy Gear
Nov 23Its Go-go-gadget review time again as we get our greedy little geek hands on the latest gadgets from Samsung. We do an in depth review of their new Phablet the “Note 3” and turn ourselves into Michael Knight (from Knightrider .. remember ?) as we slap on the worlds most advanced smart watch : The Galaxy Gear.
Shownotes
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Reviewing the Huawei Ascend Mate.
Oct 12I remember a scene in the movie “Zoolander” where the main character played by Ben Stiller, a vain spoiled male model, gets a call on his cellphone. He answers the call and starts talking into this insanely little phone that he holds to his ear, a nearly invisible device pinched between his thumb and index finger. The scene is funny because it deals with the popular trend in the phone industry of the late 90’s to make devices smaller and smaller.
The device I’m reviewing today is clearly not an offspring of that trend. The Huawei Ascend Mate is probably one of the largest cellphones on the market today. At a whopping 6.1 inch, it is even larger than the already bulky Galaxy Note 2 that is currently my ‘communication device’ of choice. Before we dive into the distinctions between a “phone” and a “communicator” … lets just take a closer look at the Ascend Mate.
The Specs
The screen of the Ascend Mate covers almost the entire surface of the 6.1 inch phone device. With a resolution of 1280 by 720 (at 241 pixels per inch) it is amazingly bright and has a realistic colour spectrum. What I found appealing is its visibility in bright sunlight. Unlike the note 2 (Whose screen is also quite bright but is terrible to use in bright sunlight) the Mate manages to give you a “good look” at whatever is on your screen, no matter if the twin suns of Tantooine are setting right behind your back. But the one thing that does stand out is the fact that the colours are very “natural” and that is surely a bonus.
The Mate comes with a front and rear facing camera with a respective resolution of 8 and 1 Megapixel. Both camera’s deliver good pictures (we tested them both outside and inside) and the flash LED’s are bright enough signal the Rusky’s on the international space station.
Battery life on the Mate is quite good considered the sheer size of the screen. The downside is that the battery is not replaceable (You can’t even remove the back cover of the Mate, Sim and memory slots are on the side). We managed a day of extensive use and still had a couple of jolts left at sunset.
The Ascend Mate comes with an adapted version of Android 4.1 (not 4.2) where Huawei decided to pre-populate your phone with most of the apps you need. All the apps are nicely organised in folders (For example : There is a GOOGLE folder with most of not ALL google apps in the Market place) and this is surely a bonus. Every phone manufacturer needs to give their software experience an added value. Some build skins, but Huawei decided to be your personal shopper in the Marketplace and pre-load your phone with all the “standard” apps that you might need. I like this, because then you are no longer dependant on the manufacturer to upload their ‘in-house’ apps, you just depend on the core developers. The interface of the Mate is sliiiiightly different to “stock” Android, but this is hardly noticeable. This lean and mean approach gives the Mate the speedy swifty feel it needs and surely adds to the pleasure of its user. The culprit to blame here would be its 1.5 Gigaherz processor and its 2 gigs of ram.
This is no phone for Tinkerbell
Like the previous Huawei phone we tested, the Mate feels like a well finished product.. One downside we have are the plastic ‘latches’ that cover the phone’s sim and SD card slots : They might break off in the long run. When we first took the phone in our hands we expected it to be bulky and hard to handle. Guess what : Its NOT . The Mate’s size is well proportioned and its internal weight distribution is well balanced. Using the phone in both portrait and landscape mode is a breeze. We compared it to using the Galaxy Note 2 and the latter does not win that Phablet prizefight. Although larger, the Mate is surprisingly more easy to hold and handle then the slightly smaller Note2. However, single handed operation is not an option and two hands are required to type and hold the phone at the same time. So this brings us to the question : Is this a phone at all ?
The Huawei Mate is the Nokia Communicator of the modern Phablets.
We hate the word “Phablets”. It hints toward a mutational subset of mutant devices that are too small to be a tablet and to large to be a phone. At 6.1 inch across the Note2 is surely a “Phablet”. Slightly to large for a phone, slightly to small for a tablet. With the addition of just a measly 0.6 inch (compared to the Note 2) the Huawei Mate slides into the Sub-Tablet category and does it brilliantly. Well balanced in weight distribution, having a crisp screen, a nice interface and decent battery life the Huawei Mate is the perfect companion for those who want both a phone and a tablet but do not have the cash to buy both. Yes : It looks dorky when you get a phone call … but so what ? How many phone calls to the younger generation still make every day ? Its all Texting, Twitter, Facebook and the likes these days. A real time ‘audio only’ conversation is something that is becoming scarce for Teens anyway.
So Geeks : Should you get one ?
Well : If you want to live on the socially-acceptable cutting edge and carry around a ‘communicator’ instead of a phone : Get one ! At around 300 euros the price is way below the ‘premium priced’ products of both Apple and Samsung and it still gets you a very cool device. The one thing you need to ‘click’ in your brain is the concept of ‘ a phone ‘. Just like the Nokia Communicator, the Mate is a “communications device” that enables you to connect to to your digital lifestyle and not to an Party Chat conference call from the 80’s. Forget concepts like “sliding it into your back pocket” or “making a quick phone call” The Mate is the lovechild between your Smartphone and your iPad making both pretty much obsolete once you have the Mate. Its not light, It does not fit in your back pocket, it does not have a 6 day battery life .. but neither does your tablet. This is not a phone, its an advanced digital communication device that provides you with connectivity, content, computational power and entertainment… and you can also use it to call your nan.
Links : Find out more about the Mate at Huawei’s official page.
