The Much Anticipated SAMSUNG S4

The much anticipated Samsung S4 is being released later on today (3 pm P.T and 6 pm E.T) in New York. The eye speculation software is rumored to be a major feature after Samsung filed for an Eye Scroll patent in January. With this software, screen movements will result from eye movement that the user does. The phone will be able to respond to any intentional eye movement that will allow clicking by blinking and automatic scrolling up, down and to the next page, a concept that has been previously researched on desktop computing. 

Much as it is a commendable application of artificial Intelligence, there may be certain cons that come with it. For instance, the behavior of the tracking software could be easily disrupted by public distractions and could bring some awkwardness in public for the user if they have to move their eyes in certain ways. 

Another speculation revolves around the floating touch technology that allows for screen movements with as much as the hovering of the finger on the screen without actually touching it. Wireless charging is another feature anticipated for and may even allow for the communication of the phone with charging mats and stands that may allow data transfer which will help with syncing data to the phone.

Other budding rumors include the impressive Exynos 5 processor (8 processors!!). To cater to the problem of battery life that most smart phones face, the LITTE architecture ensures 4 powerful Cortex-A15 cores for power hungry functions and additional 4 Cortex-A7 for simple functions. This way, in most instances the powerful cores will shut down unless warranted to work depending on the gravity of the functionality. 

In conclusion, key features include

·         System: Android 4.1 O.S

·         Screen : 5-inch screen

·         Resolution : 1920*1080

·         Camera 13mp rear and 1.9 mp front, LED flash, Video 1080p

·          Memory :2GB SD RAM, 32GB expandable

·         Network : GSM/ WCDMA/LTE

·         Transmission : GPS, WIFI, Bluetooth 4.0

Samsung prides themselves in being at the forefront of dynamic technology and constant innovations .From the past gadget releases, they hardly disappoint. Looking forward to the Samsung S4.

Blackberry 10 Making a Comeback!!

It was exciting yesterday when blackberry released the blackberry Z10 that runs on a new Blackberry 10 platform. A comeback for blackberry that aims at transforming mobile communications as a whole as well as its business brand. IOS and Android have dominated the market for the past five years and one wonders if the launch of this new OS is a bit too late.

Unlike its predecessors that ran on RIM, BB10 platform was specifically designed to run completely on touchscreen with new user experience. So, what makes it different?

• A software keyboard that swipes words to the keyboards and enables prediction and mimics the physical version experience.
• The BB Hub is a universal inbox that offers you a chance to get all your messages from emails, twitter, Facebook, linked In which can be navigated through swiping because it does not have a physical home or back button.
• BBM now allows video calling because of the BBM video and voice features. 
• BBM balance that allows users to separate their personal and work life.
• BB world store that has over 70,000 applications for its users. Not only does it have apps, but video and music as well with popular apps such as twitter, angry birds, Facebook and Skype available.

Specifications overview:

Design	Size	Height 130 mm / 5.12 in Width 65.6 mm / 2.58 in Depth 9 mm / 0.35 in
	Weight	137.5g / 4.85 oz
	Navigation	All-touch screen, with intuitive gesture based navigation
	Keyboard	On screen BlackBerry Keyboard (portrait/landscape), featuring contextual auto-correction, next-word prediction, and a personalized learning engine that gets to know the way you type
	Dedicated keys	Volume Up/Down, Mute, Lock (for Power On/Off)
Display	Resolution	1280 x 768 resolution, at 356 PPI 24-bit color depth
	Screen size	4.2" diagonal 15:9 aspect ratio
OS & desktop software	Operating system	BlackBerry 10 OS
	Desktop software	BlackBerry® Link software for your computer to enable synchronization of data and media
Performance	Processor	Dual Core 1.5 GHz
	Memory	2GB RAM 16GB Flash
	Expandable memory	Removable microSD memory card – slot under battery door (Up to 64 GB)
	USB Ports	USB 2.0 high speed port – allows charging and data synchronization of the device with a USB cable
	HDMI Port	Micro HDMI for connection to your HDTV or projector
Power	Battery	1800mAH removable battery
	Battery Life	Up to 10 hours talk time (3G) Up to 13 days standby time *Note: Battery life claims are for Model STL100-3
Camera & video	Rear camera	8 megapixel auto-focus camera Back Side Illumination for better low-light performance 5-element F2.2 lens Dedicated ISP (image signal processor) with 64MB frame buffer Flash, continuous and touch to focus, image stabilization Enhanced Super Resolution Digital Zoom (5x) 1080p HD video recording 4 DOF (Degrees of freedom) video stabilization Time Shift mode for pinpointing and adjusting individual elements of your picture
	Front camera	2 megapixel fixed-focus camera Image and video stabilization 3x digital zoom 720p HD video recording
Multimedia	Image formats	BMP, WBMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, SGI, TGA
	Audio & video formats	3GP, 3GP2, M4A, M4V, MOV, MP4, MKV, MPEG-4, AVI, ASF, WMV, WMA, MP3, MKA, AAC, AMR, F4V, WAV, MP2PS, MP2TS, AWB, OGG, FLAC
	Audio & video encoding/decoding	H.264, MPEG-4, H.263, AAC-LC, AAC+, eAAC, MP3, PCM, Xvid, AMR-NB, WMA 9/10, WMA10 professional, WMA-LL, VC-1, VP6, SPARK, PCM, MPEG-2, MJPEG (mov), AC-3, AMR-WB, QCELP, FLAC, VORBIS
Apps	Pre-loaded apps	BlackBerry® Hub, Contacts, BlackBerry® Browser, BlackBerry® Calendar, BBM, Text Messages, BlackBerry® World, BlackBerry® Remember, Docs To Go™, Pictures, Music, Videos, Story Maker, Facebook®1, Twitter®1, LinkedIn®1, Foursquare®, BlackBerry® Maps, Games, YouTube®, Voice Control, Weather, Clock, Calculator, Compass, File Manager, Box, BlackBerry® Connect for Dropbox, Print To Go, Smart Tags, Settings, Adobe® Reader, Phone, Camera/Video Camera/Time Shift, Setup, Help, SIM Toolkit, Search
Security		Password protection, screen lock, and sleep mode BlackBerry® Balance™ offering dedicated profiles to keep work and personal data separate and secure
Alerts & notifications		Tone Vibrate On-screen or LED indicator
Voice input/output		Integrated hands-free speakerphone Hands-free headset capable Bluetooth headset capable
Network & connectivity	Network bands	Z10 Up to 4G LTE Quad band LTE 2, 5, 4, 17 (700/850/1700/1900 MHz) Tri band HSPA+ 1, 2, 5/6 (850/1900/2100 MHz) Quad band HSPA+ 1, 2, 4, 5/6, (850/1700/1900/2100 MHz) Quad band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) Z10 (4G - Verizon) Up to 4G LTE LTE Band-13 (700 MHz) CDMA Cell-band and PCS-band (800/1900 MHz) WCDMA Band-1 and Band-8 (2100/900 MHz) GSM/EDGE Quad Bands (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
	Wi-Fi®	802.11 a/b/g/n 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz 4G Mobile Hotspot
	Bluetooth®	Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy (LE)
	GPS	Assisted, Autonomous and Simultaneous GPS Preloaded with BlackBerry Maps application
	NFC	BlackBerry® Tag with NFC technology enables communication between BlackBerry smartphones and other NFC-enabled devices with a tap
Sensors	Advanced Sensors	Accelerometer Magnetometer Proximity sensor Gyroscope Ambient light sensor
Accessibility		BlackBerry® Magnify, for customers with partial vision - Learn more Adjustable screen brightness, scalable fonts Teletypewriter (TTY) Support

The new low cost smart phone in the Kenyan market - The “Intel Yolo Smart Phone” Review.

Kenya is privileged to be the launch market for Africa's first Intel-powered smartphone, the “Intel Yolo Phone”. Intel has partnered with Safaricom to introduce the phone to the Kenyan mobile phone market at a reasonable cost of KES. 10,999/=. If you fit the bill, you may want to check out the Yolo as soon as possible

The Yolo phone may not be the thinnest device out there, its dimensions being 110.5*61*12.6mm and weight 132g. It has a 3.5 inch TFT multi-touch capacitive screen with HVGA resolution at 480*320 pixels. From the front view, you can see 4 touch sensitive controls at the bottom (namely Back, Home, Recent & Menu). You may not notice the volume rocker on the left and power button on the right due to their perfect blending. At the top, there is a USB/Power port and the 3.5mm audio jack. The back features a 5.0MP camera, the phone speaker at the bottom, a white “Intel Inside logo” and they just had to put it there too, a white “Safaricom logo”. At the bottom of the phone, there is a slot that to fit your nail in order to remove the rear cover for the purpose of inserting the Battery, Sim card and a microSD.

The phone responds very well to touch and its screen is scratch resistant.  It is supplied with high quality earphones hence good quality sound. The loud speaker is ok too, more like normal quality. Inside the phone’s packaging, apart from the phone and headset, you will find the USB cord, Charger and a “getting started guide”.

Intel Yolo is pre-installed with Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich. Other pre-installed applications include Wireless display app (WiDi) which works by rendering a second virtual display broadcast via WI-FI to a receiver on the TV or PC. Chrome browser and doubletwist are other applications that come bundled in the phone. When the phone is purchased from a Safaricom store, you get a one year subscription to McAfee mobile security application. Not forgetting it also comes with a pre-installed SwiftKey keyboard, Swiftkey for Intel, which is a premium keyboard that makes the typing on phone quite easy and responsive.

The rear facing camera is a 5MP one and comes with a Burst shot feature (enables capture of up to 7 simultaneous photos) and panorama mode feature (for shots in panorama mode).

The Intel Yolo phone has a 1500mAh battery is quite good, say, it gives you a full day use on social media if that’s what you like to do.

IN SUMMARY:

• Dimensions -110.5X12.6mm -132g
• Display and user Interface -Size: 3.5″Capacitive touch TFT, 60HZ-Resolution: HVGA(480X320)
• Application Processor -1.2GHz IA CPU w/512KB L2$ -Intel(R) Hyper-Threading Technology -512MB 2-ch LPDDR2 memory -Avatele passage Lite MSIC

• Camera -5MP rear-facing Camera-No front-facing camera
• Cellular  -Intel Xmm265, HSPA+ Rel.7, Cat 14/Cat6 (21Mbps DL/5.8Mbps UL);-2G Quad-Band 850/900/1800/1900 -MHz; GPRS EDGE Class 10; HSPA+/UMTS Quad-Bad 850/900/1900/2100 MHz (I/II/V/VIII)
• Connectivity-Wi-Fi (802.1bgn 1×1 2.4Gz) , BT2.1=EDR, FM Rx, (A)GPS; Micro-USB 2.0 type-B with USB charging
• Audio -3.5mm audio jack (w/ FM Rx Support)-integrated Hands-Free
• Speaker – 1 analog microphone-Single vibra motor (haptics + silent ringtones)
• Sensors -Accelerometer, Compass, Proximity, Ambient Light Sensor
• Storage -4GB eMMC -MicroSD card slot (internal
• Battery  -Removable Li-IOn Battery Pack 3.7V, 1500mAh

Conclusion: This is a phone worth having. The price of KES. 10,999/= is good, keeping in mind it has Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich!

Lenovo S400 review : A Beast!!

I stumbled upon the Lenovo S400 when i was looking for a replacement for my old crashed Samsung. At first, i was lusting for the Dell Aspiron convertible : duo hybrid tablet. but as soon as i saw the Lenovo S400, i fell in love :-). for more information on the dell Aspiron hybrid, click here.

The sleekness and functionality of this gadget makes it the ultimate laptop suitable for any programmer, developer, designer, blogger or business executive. Some of the basic specifications include:

• Intel core i3-2365m processor (4 processores)
• 1.4 Ghz default clock speed (*4)
• 4.00 GB RAM
• 500 GB HD
• 14 inch screen
• a generous touchpad that is multi touch capable.
• A chiclet accutype keyboard
• Intergrated bluetooth version 4 and Wifi
• USB 3.0, USB 2.0, HDMI out and Card Reader

Other interesting features include the Intel graphics Card that will be of particular importance to gamers. The one key recovery system is very helpful when it comes to data backup and recovery processes. it also has a quick start key that lets you surf the web, photo manager, Skype and music player at the instance of a button before the windows operating system is loaded.

Its looks are breathtaking. apart from the fact that it weighs approximately 1.8 kgs, it is extremely slim and is therefore loved because of its ultraportable nature. It comes in crimson red and silver colors. The super sleek profile and a very sleek metallic finish is captivating to the eye.

This is the ultimate Ideapad. I happened to purchase mine at the Ibrahim's Store opposite Stanley hotel. It was retailing for 45,000. Its initial price was 50,000 but lucky for me, they had a sale and were selling laptops 5,000 less if they cost more than 40,000 shillings. I had window shopped around at Avenue Electronics next to I&M bank, Bright Electronics and a couple of computer shops on the Ibrahim's lane but they were either too lame (did not have it in their stores), or did not offer a good bargain.

One thing that is wanting about it is the battery life. It was indicated that the battery life would last for about 4 hours, which it did in the earlier days. However, right now, sustaining 3 hours is a miracle. Because of its slim nature, the battery quality had to be compromised.

Lenovo Group Limited is a China company that manufactures servers, laptops, computers and handsets. it offers some of the best quality products in the market. to have a look at more of their gadgets, click here. 

Thank you for taking the time to stop by!!