Category / Reviews

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

HTC One X+ review

When HTC unveiled the One family at MWC earlier this year, the simplified line-up was meant to represent a new beginning for the Taiwanese firm. One range of phones for the entire world was supposed to be the result of a shift of focus from quantity to quality, and overall they impressed us. When we reviewed the One X back in August, we concluded that it was a stunning phone and confidently pointed towards a bright future for HTC. Sense aside, HTC could be in a position to become market leaders. But then things changed.

Surrendering to the wills of various carrier partners, mostly in the United States, HTC’s production lines began to churn out even more devices. Since that impressive MWC launch in February, no fewer than 10 Android devices have been launched by the company in various parts of the world, many of which did not bear the One family name. The most recent of these – and the company’s new European Android flagship – is the One X+ which, at first glance, looks no different to the original One X. How does it fare against its latest rivals, and, with new devices just around the corner at CES and MWC after the turn of the new year, is it worth your money? Read on to find out.

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by Neil Thomas

HTC Sense 4+ review

This summer I reviewed the HTC One X, a phone that came preloaded with Android 4.0.1 and HTC’s comparatively lighter but nevertheless bloated Sense 4 skin. You might recall I went on a bit of a rant about it, with the problem being that it lagged. A new operating system on a top of the line phone should not be stuttering on the homescreen. Now, to coincide with the release of the One X+, HTC has come up with an answer. The new Sense 4+ skin is layered on top of that buttery Android 4.1 goodness, also known as Jelly Bean, but does it fix the inherent problems its predecessor had? Read on to find out.

The Good

HTC really has fixed a lot with the new version of Sense. Most noticeably, the stuttering has been eradicated completely and utterly. I’m not completely sure whether this is down to the new Jelly Bean’s Project Butter or simply HTC’s optimisations, but it really doesn’t matter. Whatever they’ve done, it makes the phone a joy to use. Expandable notifications have been introduced too, bringing all sorts of new functionality to your pull down shade. The only problem with these is the slightly awkward two finger pinch gesture to open them up – something that is not present in stock Android. The keyboard is really a lot better than it used to be, nixing the pointless arrow keys at the bottom and adding altogether better feedback and responsiveness. My biggest annoyance with the One X has also been fixed – the menu button situation. It used to be that the One X did not have a hardware menu button, with a software version popping on screen as and when it was needed, wasting about a tenth of the screen real estate. With this update, TC has added the option in settings to reassign the multitasking button to menu. Holding down this button with this setting enabled will take you to recent apps, giving back the screen that was taken. Google Now, Android’s answer to Siri, has also been added, with a long press of the home button propelling you straight into the new voice search feature. While I don’t want to go as far as to compare it with Siri as they both perform different functions, I have to say the retrieval of data is snappier and the voice is not nearly as robotic.

The Bad

There isn’t really much that has become worse in Sense 4+. After all, it is an update: something supposed to make something else better, unless you are Apple.

The Ugly

There is a lot in this section, and while there is not as much as there used to be, the list of negative aspects of Sense only reinforce my desire to see stock Android being shipped on more than one phone a year. The first thing is the icons, which remain childish and displeasing to the eye. Compared to the polished look of iOS, Windows Phone and post-ICS stock Android, you realise how far behind such skins remain, and a little customisation with an icon pack goes a long way aesthetically. I still feel that the greens and whites of Sense clash with the deep blues and Tron-like lighting of Holo clash horribly, however certain elements appear pleasant and muted. Another thing that hasn’t been fixed is the lockscreen shortcuts, still default to the ones you have placed in your dock.

Conclusion

Overall, I think Sense 4+ is a great upgrade over Sense 4, making Sense a decent skin once again. It makes it smoother, faster, slicker and better looking while also tying in new functionality that you won’t necessarily find in a stock Android build. If you are a user of one of HTC’s One series phones, I urge you to upgrade to keep your sanity and enjoy the butter.

by Neil Thomas

HTC One X review

After declining sales and being criticised for releasing too many handsets into the market, the new One series from HTC represents a much needed refresh of their strategy. What once used to be a floundering attempt to satisfy the demands of the many carriers has been diluted to this, a trio of phones to carry them headfirst into 2012. The One X, however, is even more than that. This sits on the top of the tree as a superphone with specs that raise the bar for future Android devices to come. It also debuts with HTC’s refresh of their Sense skin, layered on top of Android 4.0.3, fresh from Mountain View. Alas, we must ask the question – is it really as good as it seems? Read on to find out.

Unboxing

Video Review

Hardware

To say that this phone is good looking is an understatement. The phone is genuinely beautiful and is a breath of fresh air compared to the dull black slabs that most companies are churning out these days. The amount of detail and care put into this design definitely shows in the product. The glass covering the screen curves over the sides, blending in with the sleek polycarbonate body. The One X is made of a similar material to Nokia’s Lumia 800 and 900, albeit a little less textured. It is 8.9mm thick, which, while chunky for a flagship phone on paper, certainly doesn’t feel it. The phone feels comfortable in the hand despite its 4.7″ display, and is in reality not much larger than most 4.3″ devices such as its baby brother, the wafer-thin One S. The bezel is minimal, and you really feel like you are actually touching the content on the screen thanks to the laminated panel. The only slight annoyance I have is that I do struggle to reach the top left and bottom left hand corners without adjusting my grip on the phone. It has a curved profile reminiscent of the Galaxy Nexus, with the top and bottom gently tapering upwards. It is worth noting that the camera lens protrudes just enough to give the speakers a megaphone effect when placed on a table.

The sides are fairly minimal, with the left holding an MHL (MicroUSB/HD Video out) port and a volume rocker on the right, which is conveniently placed where your thumb grips it during normal usage. It has a nice amount of travel and you can use it while it is in your pocket. On the top there is a power button, 3.5mm headphone jack and a microSIM tray. On the bottom there is one of the two microphones (the other being just next to the headphone jack) and three capacitive buttons which cause some concern that I shall get into later. A notable omission is a camera button – a little strange considering that the camera is HTC’s major advertising point with the phone. However, the care and attention to detail that HTC employed when designing this product is apparent is the notification LED. While it is not RGB, it is integrated into the drilled holes for the earpiece, which was a very interesting idea, and it works. The LED is completely invisible when not in use, and bright enough to be visible in any light when notifying you. As a whole, the design of the phone immediately strikes you as HTC. It seems like they have perfected their design language, with none of the failings of the myriad of phones that came before, although it isn’t without fault. The black international model which I acquired picked up grease really easily, and as of the time of writing I have not been able to remove it. I would recommend picking up a case if you are considering this phone, despite what HTC says. Another thing that I have noticed is that the micro-holes for the earpiece, while aesthetically pleasing, could easily pick up dust, blocking it up.

As for internals, it is safe to say that this is one of the most powerful phones on the market. The international One X has a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 clocked at 1.5GHz which is no slouch at all. It also has a gigabyte of RAM, which is par for the flagship course. These big numbers certainly show up in the benchmark scores below. Despite Nvidia’s graphical prowess, gaming performance does not live up to expectations. I have a feeling that it has something to do with the lack of RAM, or maybe the fact that that the processor is driving 921,600 pixels, but the effect is noticable. Games do seem to settle down after maybe 5 minutes of gameplay, but it is still unnerving. Another thing that I noted was that the area in between the camera and volume rocker can get really hot, but the heat was isolated to just that place, most likely due to the positioning of the processor. Speaking of the processor, the presence Tegra processor inside allows access to the Tegra Zone suite of games. These are games that are ‘optimised’ for the Tegra processor with better graphics and more effects, and you really can tell the difference. There are two major omissions when it comes to the One X in terms of hardware, namely being the lack of expandable storage and removable battery, but having a replaceable back would weaken the structural integrity of the phone, so we can give HTC a pass there.

Benchmarks

Quadrant – 4602
Vellamo – 1854
Antutu – 9795
Nenamark 2 – 54.7fps

Display

The 1280 x 720 SuperLCD 2 display on this phone may be the best display I have ever seen on a phone, with vibrant colours and sharp text. With a pixel density of 312 pixels per inch, the panel is not quite as dense as the 342ppi displays found in HTC’s own Rezound and Sony’s Xperia S, but it is well into the area  of over 300ppi referred to by Apple as ‘Retina territory’, meanng that individual pixels cannot be distinguished by the human eye. It also lacks the PenTile subpixel arrangement infamously found on many other flagship phones such as Samsung’s Galaxy S III and Nexus, thus ensuring a higher-quality display free of jagged edges and fuzz. One of the reasons that phone manufacturers give in favour of using AMOLED in their phones is that it is thinner than LCD and allows for slimmer profiles, but HTC’s SLCD2 has shown that LCD technology is catching up, although it still remains more power-hungry than AMOLED panels.

Software

The One X comes with Android 4.0, the (second) latest operating system from Google, but the presence of HTC Sense 4 is the most intriguing software tweak. Sense has been criticized a lot in the past for its superfluous animations, flamboyant graphics, and purely idiotic design concepts made for a subpar user experience. Users have yearned for a toned down or stock Android experience, with less of the idiotism of days past. HTC says they took this into consideration when designing Sense 4, but did they do enough? Short answer, sort of.

Sense has definitely been toned down. The over the top weather animations have gone. The person who made the stupid decision of having a permanent ‘personalize’ button on the dock has been fired. It’s just generally been cleaned up, but it isn’t enough. The icons look like they were designed by a 4 year old, being full of white accents and just looking dated. The recent apps list is a waste of space, with the switcher taking up the entire screen, and is also more challenging to use than the stock multitasking menu. The notion that lockscreen shortcuts can only be the icons you have in your dock is just plain stupid, because I don’t need a camera in my dock, but I certainly do on my lockscreen. The widgets look like they were designed in the 90s, with stupid gradients that make me want to throw the phone in a river. The keyboard has arrow buttons, which are completely useless and render the keyboard almost impossible to type on. Finally, I said in the hardware section that the capacitive buttons had a problem. Sticking to the Android 4.0 guidelines, there is no menu button but this means that legacy apps need to display an annoying black bar underneath any app that isn’t optimized for ICS. I would have much preferred software buttons or a menu button instead of a multitasking key, similar to the setup on the Samsung Galaxy S III.

I will admit that Sense does have its perks, 25GB of free Dropbox space being one, but the performance of the phone is what matters, and Sense simply won’t do. I promptly refused to use Sense and flashed a build of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean onto it. This seemed to speed things up a lot, but please note that this does void your warranty.

Camera

The camera on this phone is the second best phone camera I have used after that of the iPhone 4S. The 8MP rear shooter takes bright and vivid photos with little to no blurring and an instant shutter. This is because of what HTC calls ImageSense. What this means is that there is an extra chip inside the phone just for processing images and video. This and a dual shutter mean that the One X can take pictures and video at the same time. It also gifts the One X with astoundingly fast picture taking to the point where the phone actually sounds like a machine gun when in burst mode. The camera software on this phone is second to none. It lets you take awesome pictures, is well thought out, and gives you a nice range of effects to choose from. Low light pictures weren’t great, so you’ll need to use a flash, and sometimes photos get blurred really easily. You can view a gallery of pictures here.

Battery Life & Radio

The battery life of this phone ties into the software section. With Sense, the battery is rubbish. An hour of YouTube and 15 minutes of Dead Trigger brought me down to 50%. That might not seem that bad, but with Sense taken off and replaced by a CyanogenMod ROM I could do the same thing and only lose 20%.

The cellular radio is simply average. I got signal where most other phones get signal, however I did note that the WiFi usually displayed 1 bar lower than on other devices. I don’t know if this has something to do with the way that signal is displayed or an actual discrepancy in the WiFi, but it’s there nonetheless.

Conclusion

All things considered, the One X is a solid flagship. It is the epitome of what HTC has learned from a year of failed designs, however the phone faces some stiff opposition from Samsung’s Galaxy S III. As for which one to buy, my answer would be whichever suits you best. If you need expandable storage and a removable battery and can live with the Pentile AMOLED display, then the Galaxy S III may be your best option, but if you desire design then go with the One X. You can’t go wrong with either.

by Henry Hunt

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Dawnguard review

 

After not too long a wait, Bethesda has graced us with yet more dragon vampire killing fun in the form of the first DLC pack for our best game of 2011, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, best known as the source of repetitive internet jokes which have prompted numerous angry blog posts. Under the title of Dawnguard, this add-on not only gives an extra 6 hours of gameplay but also makes a number of slight additions and improvements to an already great game.

On the whole, Dawnguard’s storyline is not fantastic but it’s still a good addition to one of the best games out there. The quests are fun, with a good mixture of murder, carnage and even the occasional puzzle, the new characters are interesting and in all honesty fun to interact with and, most importantly for an RPG, the storyline is good.  My major complaint with Dawnguard is the fact that there is no variety in what you have to do. Just like the rest of Skyrim, each quest is simply run here, kill/steal/Fus Ro Dah this, come back, repeat, and while this can be fun for short periods, I found that after about an hour of gameplay I began to become bored. It would have been nice for a Bethesda to make at least a little differentiation between Skyrim and Dawnguard, but alas no.

While the main storyline is at worst disappointing, the rest of the DLC is far superior. There are numerous minor changes to the general gameplay which make the whole experience feel much better than it did before. My favourite addition is that of horseback fighting, as nothing feels better than charging through battle, firing slow motion arrows from the back of your horse. This, along with dragon bone weapons, werewolf and vampire perk trees and other such improvements makes for a significant improvement for an already superb game.

Overall, Dawnguard is decent. While the storyline and quests are not what they could have been, everything else that comes along side the questline makes Dawnguard in my eyes worth the money, despite the high price tags. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Dawnguard is available now for 1600 Microsoft Points (£13.71) from the Xbox Marketplace and for £13.99 on PC via Steam, while Bethesda is said to be ‘not satisfied yet‘ with Dawnguard’s performance on PlayStation 3, and have decided to hold back its release until they can ensure that it will not worsen users experiences in the Skyrim world.

 

by Ali Wilson

Apple iPad 2 review

Launched almost 1 year ago, Apple’s iPad 2 remains the biggest selling tablet of all time but, with its successor’s unveil coming in as little as 2 weeks, is it still a viable option in the tablet space or could it become the next budget smash hit?

Hardware

The main upgrade from the iPad to the iPad 2 is the dual-core A5 processor, clocked at around 1GHz, which definitely contributes greatly to the immense speed of the iPad. It also includes both a front and rear camera at 0.7 and 0.1 mega-pixels. You may look at these specs and sneer, but the back camera also is capable of up to 720p HD. Admittedly, using the iPad as a camera does make you look stupid, as Spike Lee demonstrated in front of Barack Obama. With a choice of either 16GB, 32GB or 64GB, you can choose the model that is right for you. The iPad 2’s 9.7″ IPS screen is once again fantastic and, while not quite full HD at 1024 x 768, still provides a fantastic image. The battery life of the iPad is surprising, as it is able to be used non-stop for a full 10 hours before charging is required. The iPad still uses the same 3.5mm headphone jack so you can use any old headphones. This is unlike Sony Ericsson, for instance, where the proprietary connector needed is often very hard to find and sometimes quite expensive. The three axis gyro and accelerometer make hand-held gaming entertaining. A great app to test this out is Sonic Riders, a game just like Mario Kart but with Sonic characters. You tilt the device to steer and it is much more enjoyable than moving an analog stick with one finger.

Design


As mentioned earlier, the iPad 2 features a 9.7″ IPS LCD screen which, in my opinion, looks stunning. It makes tablet gaming, surfing the web, and watching movies much more enjoyable than on my other devices. The size of the screen makes for excellent cinematic experience as it is nearly as big as some smaller netbooks. I love the aluminium body, only 8.8mm thick and weighing just over 600g. This makes it nice and simple to carry around and it fits snugly into your hand during use. It can simply slip inside a bag or a coat pocket and is easily accessible at all times.

Software

iOS 5 was released in October and comes with over 200 new features including iCloud, iMessage, Newstand, Reminders, Notification Centre and WiFi syncing, much of which has made its way across to OS X Mountain Lion. iCloud enables Apple device owners to store music, videos, apps and anything else to “the cloud”. This means that you can wirelessly add all your files to any of your iOS 5 devices such as Mac, Apple TV, iPod Touch and iPad 2. iMessage is now open to iPad and iPod Touch as well as just iPhone. It allows to to send unlimited text messages via Wi-Fi or 3G. You do not have to pay to do this which I think is an amazing bonus. Reminders allows you to store dates, meetings, shopping trips and much more. You can also set alarms to help you remember when and where to be. The new Notification Centre allows you to have all your notifications in one place to access instantly. Personally, I am glad that Apple have finally decided to do this as I find the small red circles on apps quite annoying as you would have to load up the app to find out what it was. Now, however, you can see all your notifications for all apps, all on one page. PC free registration now enables people who don’t even own a computer to own an iPad, part of Apple’s quest to kill the PC and make the tablet king. With PC Free you can simply set everything up on the device itself. This means you can have your brand new tablet up and running in less than 10 minutes.

There are over 140,000 apps available for the iPad now and the variety is massive. You can have everything from apps for fruit-slicing to apps for checking your football teams latest scores. Apple, of course, have made their own apps for the iPad including Apple’s own iWork suite for document editing, GarageBand, iBooks and iMovie. These all are very stunning on the iPad and are definitely worth getting if you ever get the chance. However, as well as Apple’s first-party apps, there are thousands more out there waiting to be downloaded. Some of my personal favourites include Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Stick Cricket, Temple Run, Sonic Riders and Doodle Jump. There are also all the social networking apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Skype. For primary school children, secondary school children and even students at university there is a wide selection of educational apps in many subjects. One of my favourite educational apps is The Night Sky. You simply point the device towards the sky and the advanced gyro spins the star map to show you the names of all the stars and planets in the sky. Great for learning about the constellations and planets. There are also apps to help you out in business, sports, news, travel and much, much more.

Accessories

Even though the iPad 2 is a stunning piece of equipment on its own, it doesn’t hurt to have a couple of accessories to help you out with making the most out of your tablet. The iPad 2 smart cover is a quite interesting piece of equipment. When you snap it over the screen, it not only fits snugly and perfectly, but it automatically put the iPad into sleep mode. The cover can also be folded into a stand so you can sit back and watch a movie or even if you just want that extra bit of elevation. The Smart Cover comes in many different colours and you get the choice between polyurethane and leather, but you will, however, have to pay an extra £24 for the premium leather, which will fade over time. Another great accessory is the camera connection kit. It includes two small dongles that plug into the main iPad port. One has a SD card slot for instant download capability should the internal storage not be sufficient, whereas the other has a USB 2.0 port for camera cables to be plugged directly into the iPad.

Conclusion

Even 1 year on, the iPad 2 is still the best tablet on the market. With so much more tablet specific software than other platforms, a fantastic aluminium design and a lower price than a number of its competitors, there is no real reason not to choose anything over it at the moment, but be wary of the iPad 3 launch that lurks just around the corner.

by Mark Jennings

Nokia 100 review

Nokia is still one of the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturers not purely because of high-end smartphones, but certain markets demand different devices, like the latest bargain from Espoo, the Nokia 100. Picking this phone up for £15 unlocked, you can’t really expect much other than Nokia’s standard durability, a feature I most value while finding the perfect phone. With no microSD slot for storage expansion, no camera or any other remarkable hardware this is not a phone for you gamers out there or lovers of music but for those who want a simple, reliable and frankly indestructible phone, this is definitely the phone for you.

Hardware

With a 800 mAh battery, a common capacity for most phones of its calibre, you almost never need to worry about charging your phone. The 100 will give you 7.5 hours of talk time and 850 hours on standby, meaning that you can leave it on in your pocket for a whole month before charging. The flash light equipped has proven useful, being bright and not munching on too much battery. This function can be activated by pressing the top cursor twice. Even though this phone hopelessly fails at providing you with entertainment, it still has a built-in FM radio tuner that, with a compatible headset, plays at an impressive quality. Another, and perhaps my final criticism of this phone is the alarm system. I can’t for the life of me figure out how, or if, it works. I have set an alarm on various occasions, each time going off on time but failing to make any noise, even with all the sound settings on loud. There may well be an obvious feature I have not yet activated but this is still a let down.

Due to the phones simplicity, there is not much more to talk about other than how indestructible it is. As I write this, Xavier and Kieran are playing catch with the 100, which is dust proof and made from very tough materials, just as you would expect from a Nokia.  On occasion, the battery does come out with a very sudden impact landing, but the phone boots in just under 4 seconds. Whether this phone is waterproof I do not know but I do not plan to try it out. (Digixav is not responsible for any broken Nokia phones as a result of them being plunged in water – ed) All visible hardware on this phone is either made from stainless steel, copper, zinc or aluminium and the plastics which make up the majority of the phone are ABS/PC, PET, PA and epoxy. These materials may well be the result of how light this phone is, weighing slightly over 70g including the battery.

Conclusion

If you want a cheap, durable, brick of a phone that does precisely what it should, ie. call and text, then look no further than the indestructible Nokia 100, or its dual-SIM cousin the 101. The phone is compact, simple and reliable, and it will almost certainly be able to handle anything you throw it at.

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Nokia Lumia 710 review

Nokia’s first Windows Phone, the Lumia 800, was just what they needed to get back into the market. Running Windows Phone 7.5, the phone won multiple awards and the hearts of many consumers. Also announced at Nokia World in London at the same time was the Lumia 710, pitched as the affordable Lumia device. Now, this device has made it to the UK at a slither under £200 on pay as you go, but, with fierce competition from hordes of Android and BlackBerry devices in the same price range, is it enough to win people over?

Hardware

Internally, the 710 is almost identical to its more expensive bretheren, the 800 and the 900. The phone comes equipped with the same 1.4GHz single core Qualcomm MSM8255 processor and Adreno 205 GPU, resulting in snappy performance in everything we have tried with it. The phone has a 3.7″ display with the current standard Windows Phone WVGA (800 x 480) resolution and Nokia’s ClearBlack technology, allowing for deeper blacks and slightly more vibrant colours. While the 800 and 900 both use AMOLED displays for more vibrant colours, Nokia used an LCD to cut costs on the 710. It still looks quite good with the same 252ppi density as the 800, but, comparing the 2 devices side by side, the difference in the displays is very noticeable. As ever, the PenTile layout of sub-pixels causes occasional problems while reading text, however this can easily be rectified by zooming in when able to. The phone has fantastic viewing angles with very little discolouration occurring, with more problems being caused by the overly glossy screen.

One of the main advantages of the 710 over the 800 is its removable 1300mAh battery, allowing for the obligatory battery pull if problems arise. Booting from a battery pull is incredibly quick, certainly around 3x quicker than my aging HTC Wildfire and also the HTC HD7. Nokia claim that the battery lasts around 7:40 on a single charge while connected to a 3G network, and we have found this to be not far off the truth.

The phone is quite heavy at 125g, but it feels very comfortable in the hand. One problem I have with small screened devices is that they are often very thin and, as such, sit low down in the hand. The 12.5mm deep chassis feels fine in my hand, allowing my thumbs to move freely across the device without engulfing it as with the iPod touch. The phone is both thicker and heavier than my daily driver, the HTC Wildfire, but it is hardly noticeable in my pocket and I could easily move up to a phone of this size. Being a Nokia, it feels like it has been made with care, and that it could withstand anything. A sheet of Gorilla Glass is on the front to protect against cracks and scratches, but we didn’t want to test the ruggedness of it on fear of something going wrong.

The phone requires a microSIM card which can be slightly awkward to insert and remove from its slot, but, most importantly for a phone, the call quality is fantastic. When using the O2 network, the Lumia provided crisp, clear sound, and the caller was very audible throughout. This feature of a phone is often overlooked, but it is good to see Nokia ensuring that users get the best experience from the HSPA+ radio inside. My biggest problem with the entire phone, however, is the lack of storage. Since the phone has no ROM, the OS takes up a good chunk of the paltry 8GB storage, leaving only 6.4GB free to the user. With no option to expand this with microSD, you must rely heavily on the cloud for your media consumption if you pick up the 710.

Camera

Similarly to the 800, the Lumia 710 does not have a front facing camera but video calling with a phone is not something that matters to me. If you want this option available or feel it to be a necessity, then an HTC Radar would probably be the best option for you, despite the premium of about £80 over the 710. The rear facing camera lacks the Carl Zeiss optics of Nokia’s high-end cameras, but shoots decent, albeit slightly grainy, shots at 5MP in a 4:3 aspect ratio. The phone also shoots video at a 720p resolution, but we are unable to upload the test footage at the moment. We will update this review when can to include this footage, which is surprisingly good, handling movement very well for a mid-range phone.

Software

By and large, the phone has a stock Windows Phone 7.5 operating system which is as superb as ever. On the 710, it performs fantastically, with no problems handling games such as Rainbow Rapture and Crazy Survival. One thing that people use against Windows Phone is the relative lack of apps, however, at the time of writing, the Marketplace has reached As our unit came unlocked, it is fortunately free of carrier bloatware, but, as Nokia made clear at the unveiling in October, the Lumia range comes with a number of predominantly functional and useful pre-installed Nokia-centric/exclusive apps which can thankfully be uninstalled if desired.

  • App Highlights – Basic app suggestions in 4 columns: Starter Kit, Top Apps, Promo and Cool Stuff.
  • Contacts Transfer – A simple app that can be used to transfer contacts from your old phone via Bluetooth.
  • ESPN – Just as you would expect, this app has the latest sports news and videos from ESPN. Great for sports fans.
  • Marketplace – A Nokia Collection is featured in the Marketplace with the pre-installed apps along with other Nokia-exclusive apps WRC Live and TuneIn Radio.
  • Network Setup – An app that allows you to select which mobile network to connect to. Pointless after first boot.
  • Nokia Drive – Fully functional voice navigation for free – a great reason to buy a Nokia phone full stop.
  • Nokia Maps – Nokia’s fantastic map service is now on all platforms, but it is still better than the pre-installed Bing Maps app.
  • Nokia Music – Listen to mixes of music selected by Nokia, once again for free. A store is also available in the app.
  • We Care – Nokia tell you that they respect your privacy and about what they do with your data. Waste of space.

One thing that is missing is the ability to tether from the phone. Enabled with the Mango update, Nokia oddly chose not to include a tethering option in either the 800 or the 710 at launch. A software update enabling it was promised for the 800 so, should such an update ever come, the 710 should also be in line for the update. The lack of tethering is off-putting for me as I tether perpetually at the moment, but I could survive through the phone itself should it become necessary.

Design

No matter how you look at it, the 710 is the ugly duckling of the Nokia Lumia family. When compared to the elegant 800 with its sweeping curves and polycarbonate shell, the 710 is rather disappointing, something I mentioned when I wrote about the phone shortly after its launch. Granted, the phone does look a hell of a lot better in the flesh than any images could demonstrate, but there is something about it that doesn’t look right. In accordance with how the N9 design was recycled for the 800, the 710 borrows its form factor from the Nokia 603, a phone released with Symbian Belle that, like the N9, has not had an official UK release.

To appeal to certain demographics, the 710 comes in black and white with a whole host of interchangeable back covers to fit your mood. The black model that we reviewed came with black and blue covers out of the box, however I have yet to find a retailer that stocks the other colours. The black cover is coated with a soft-touch plastic and it feels very nice in hand, but I cannot say the same for the blue one. It feels of a lower quality and not as robust as its counterpart, and I think that the phone looks better as plain black anyway. The covers go on in a rather strange and fidgety manner. Unlike most battery covers which lock on from the bottom or top, the cover on the 710 requires connection on the right hand side at first, before wrapping around the device. Often, the case requires a further press above the camera lens to ensure a secure connection, and the method of removing the case takes some getting used to.

Unlike the 800 and most other Windows Phones on the market, the 710 has physical keys at the bottom instead of the normal capacitive buttons. The strip feels solid, but aesthetically it is not pleasant. The LEDs for the back, Windows and search buttons appear quite far away from the surface of the plastic, which itself is almost flush with the glass on the front, making the buttons hard to press on occasion. I can’t help but think that capacitive buttons would have been a better choice, but I understand that the corners had to be cut somewhere to get the phone to be half the price of its polycarbonate brother.

Conclusion

The Nokia Lumia 710 is a fantastic smartphone for those on a tight budget. For half the price of the 800, you get the exact same hardware, save for the display, the camera, the storage and the design. As I said, the phone looks so much better in the flesh than in pictures but undoubtedly the 800 and 900 look better. That being said, the phone is tremendous for the price. For Nokia to be selling such technology at such a low price is worthy of celebration, and I would thoroughly recommend this phone to anybody in the market for a great all-round smartphone at a low price.

Many thanks go to Digixav reader Joseph Bryant for lending us his phone for this review

by Henry Hunt

HP Pavilion dv7 review

In August, HP were in turmoil. Leo Apotheker had killed webOS out of nowhere, announced that he wanted to spin off their PC division. Then he was ousted in favour of Meg Whitman who eventually came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea (gasp) to keep the world’s largest PC business. Apotheker is an idiot, and HP make fantastic computers, such as the budget Pavilion g6 range and the award-winning Folio ultrabook. Now, we have our hands on a Pavilion dv7, a high-end notebook designed for work and play, but can it justify its £949 price tag?

Hardware

The dv7-6b51ea that we are reviewing boasts a powerful 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-2670QM processor, capable of turbo-boosting to 3.1GHz, and a massive 8GB of RAM, enabling it to handle almost anything you throw at it. This, combined with the 1GB of video RAM on the AMD Radeon graphics chip and the 1TB hard drive means that this laptop is perched at the higher end of the spec table. HP didn’t stop there, adding in a few small things such as a fingerprint scanner and a Blu-ray drive to make it just that bit better. The display is a 17.3″ panel of 1600 x 900 resolution which, while having great contrast and a crisp picture, lacks in brightness, even compared to lower end laptops like the Pavilion g6. The screen does however have impressive viewing angles. The built in camera is quite crap, despite its misleading HP TrueVision HD label. Both videos and stills come out at a measly 640 x 480 resolution, and the frame rate is worse than a dustbin.

As with all flagship HP laptops, the dv7 range comes with Beats Audio as standard. The clarity of sound is fantastic, even when playing at full volume. Little distortion occurs and the HP Triple Bass Subwoofer ensures that my large Skrillex collection always makes my head bang. Most importantly for a journalist, however, is the keyboard and the one in the dv7 is quite simply fantastic. The keys are not too shallow, and a rubberised coating makes them very comfortable. The number pad, noticeably absent from some smaller HP devices, is convenient and as you’d expect. The trackpad, hilariously coined as a TouchPad by HP, is smooth and responsive, supporting certain multitouch gestures, but I still prefer using a mouse.

Design

The dv7 is a beautiful piece of tech. The core of the device is made from brushed aluminium, which looks and feels amazing. The base of the device is unfortunately made of plastic, but I can live with this. One advantage of the Envy range is the aluminium unibody, even if it is just a carbon copy of the MacBook Pro. The notebook is not the most portable one I have ever seen, but I haven’t had problems carrying it around the school grounds on a daily basis. The lid of the device is emblazoned with the HP logo which, again similarly to Apple devices, lights up when the device is in use. While this is a nice touch, I would rather that HP used these LEDs in a different place such as the keyboard, which suffers from the lack of backlighting. The speakers are placed around the edge of the laptop and on a bank between the two hinges. The Beats branding is clear to see across the device, even in the taskbar, but, when compared to certain HP laptops, the branding is thankfully minimal and bearable.

Software

The dv7 comes with Windows 7 Home Premium as standard, along with the usual preloaded crapware that you have to filter through upon your first boot. Things like HP Games by WildTangent, Bing Toolbar, Internet Explorer 9 and the free trial of Norton Internet Security went without a moment’s hesitation, but HP CoolSense is actually worth keeping on any HP device. CoolSense allows you to juggle fan usage and performance to make the laptop cooler/quieter when required. SimplePass software comes to work with the fingerprint reader and it can be programmed to log into certain sites and open them with a swipe. Being so well-specced, the dv7 has had no problems with almost everything thrown at it. Games such as Portal 2 and Modern Warfare 3 can be played on the highest graphical settings with ease, and I have, on occasion, been able to play at least half a dozen HD YouTube videos simultaneously, but the Zune software has strangely caused a few problems. On a number of occasions it has caused random reboots, but I believe that this problem is with the software itself having heard of others enduring similar experiences.

Conclusion

The HP Pavilion dv7 is a fantastic laptop, perfectly equipped to handle anything thrown at it without being excessively bulky or expensive. For less than the price of a 15 inch MacBook Pro, you get a better processor, sublime audio and, in my opinion, a superior all-round user experience. While the battery life and webcam both leave things to improve upon, overall I would recommend this notebook to anybody who can afford it.

Xavier Voigt-Hill contributed to this review

by Henry Hunt

Windows Phone 7.5 Mango review

First things first, this review will be from the point of view of a Microsoft enthusiast and will largely include my opinions and hatred of Android that all writers on this website share.

I’ve had a Windows Phone for around a year now and I love it. Last year for Christmas I received my HTC HD7 and it was the best thing I’d ever been given. The UI amazed me, the fact that it had Microsoft Office was so cool that I could hardly put it into words. I even wrote this epic review on the 4.3 inch The best bit of all was that it connected to my Xbox Live account and my games got me achievements. However after about a week usage I began to notice a few major flaws in the first version of WP7.

However it was announced within a month or two that NoDo, the first big update to be announced for my new phone, was to be released in March and that Angry Birds (the main reason that I had wanted a smartphone) was to finally be on Xbox Live. I was very excited as all of the things that made WP7 inferior to Android and iOS were going to be fixed. In reality all we received was copy and paste. And Angry Birds was not released for another four or five months.

After this series of let downs when Mango was announced I was not expecting great things but I looked on the WP7 website and liked what I saw. Groups seemed like a good idea. And the social network integration looked like something that I would use. On the October 15th I finally downloaded Mango. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done. Read on past the break to find out why.

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