Consumer Reports Says 'Apple iPhone 5 is a Winner'

Consumer Reports says its completed its tests on the iPhone 5 and found the smartphone to be a 'winner'.

A larger, 4-inch display; a thinner and lighter profile; 4G LTE access; and a host of innovative features all helped the iPhone 5 move up in the ranks, surpassing not only the previous iPhone 4S but also a number of other new Android-based smart phones.

The iPhone 5 also improved on areas that the iPhone 4S did well, boosting the range of functions controlled by its Siri voice assistant, and making the already top-notch iPhone camera even better.

Notably, the report downplays criticism of the Maps application on iOS 6, saying that they expect any shortcomings to improve over time.


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Low Light Shootout: iPhone 5 vs. Lumia 920 vs. One X vs. Galaxy S III Photos

The iPhone 5, Lumia 920, Nokia 808, HTC One X and Galaxy S III go head to head in an Engadget low light shootout.

It looks like Nokia's controversial marketing move, which involved using pro DSLRs to "simulate" low-light shooting, was even less necessary that the smartphone maker may have thought. During our visit to the company's Tampere, Finland research and development complex, we were given access to a comprehensive testing suite, enabling us to shoot with the Lumia 920 and a handful of competing products in a controlled lighting environment. Technicians dimmed the lights and let us snap a static scene with each handset at just 5 lux -- a level on par with what you may expect on a dimly lit city street in the middle of the night. The 920 took the cake, without question, but the iPhone didn't fare too poorly itself, snatching up nearly as much light as the Nokia device. The 808 PureView also performed quite well, but the HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy S III yielded unusable results.

For a far more detailed comparison of each device's performance, hit this link...




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Verizon iPhone 5 won’t ever be locked, most likely due to FCC agreements

Verizon is not going to re-lock the iPhone 5, according to a report today from the AP:



NEW YORK (AP) — Verizon Wireless said Monday that it won’t prevent its version of the iPhone 5 from being used on AT&T’s network. The Verizon version of the iPhone 5, which went on sale Friday, came with an unexpected feature: it works on the network of AT&T and many other phone companies [including T-Mobile], as well as on Verizon’s. It’s the first time Verizon, the country’s largest cellphone company, has sold a phone that works on competing U.S. networks with no complicated hacking, or “unlocking,” procedures.

But, does Big Red even have that option? Verizon tends to do everything possible to lock customers in, and allowing AT&T customers to use the handset is totally against everything it stands for. A Howard Forums poster notes that when Verizon purchased its 700MHz spectrum a few years ago, which it would eventually use for LTE, the carrier told the Federal Communications Commission it would not lock phones that used this network as part of the deal.

I’ve been reading up on the open access provisions in regards to the C-Block of 700 mhz LTE spectrum. There is a very specific line saying that a licensee(Verizon) cannot configure devices to be locked against use on another network. This means that Verizon would be violating Federal law if the iPhone 5′s sim slot is even partially locked. Unlike on the iPhone 4S – these regulations mean that Verizon must even allow an AT&T sim card to be used in any Verizon iPhone 5.

The relevant law is found here in the Code of Federal Regulations
Title 47 – Telecommunication. CHAPTER I – FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED). SUBCHAPTER B – COMMON CARRIER SERVICES. PART 27 – MISCELLANEOUS WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES. Subpart B – Applications and Licenses. § 27.16Network access requirements for Block C in the 746-757 and 776-787 MHz bands.

Take a look at this : (e) Handset locking prohibited. No licensee may disable features on handsets it provides to customers, to the extent such features are compliant with the licensee’s standards pursuant to paragraph (b)of this section, nor configure handsets it provides to prohibit use of such handsets on other providers’ networks.

The one caveat is that Verizon iPhones cannot utilize LTE on AT&T’s network, but it will be able to use T-Mobile’s 2G and new 1900MHz 4G network.


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Chinese Company Used Leaked iPhone 5 Specs to Build Knockoff and Hopes to Sue Apple for Patent Infringement in China

Just the other day, we were hearing about Samsung getting in legal trouble over patent violations with Apple. A federal court decision ruled that Samsung owes Apple more than $1 billion in restitution. Samsung plans to appeal the decision, saying it never attempted to steal anything from Apple's iPhone.
Next week, on September 12, Apple is expected to introduce its highly anticipated iPhone 5, but the company may find itself on the receiving end of a patent-infringement battle. Chinese tech companyGoophone is launching the Goophone I5, which looks suspiciously like an iPhone in the company's video on YouTube.
In recent months, tech blogs all over the world have released leaked photos and videos of what is rumored to be Apple's iPhone 5. The pictures show what appears to be a longer, thinner, but altogether similar version of previous models of the best-selling smartphone in the world. The Goophone I5 will run a version of the Android operating system that mimics the look of Apple's IOS. Goophone claims to have already patented its phone in China and vows to sue for patent infringement should Apple try to release the iPhone 5 in China as well.
One commenter on Goophone's YouTube account wrote, "the clone wants to sue the original...THIS IS THE FUTURE!" Of course, since the new iPhone 5 does not technically exist for the public yet, we'll just have to wait and see.

Thanks Yahoo


Tell us what you think about this interesting turn of events. What do you think Apple should do.


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Samsung Galaxy S II clocks the fastest GPU in any current smartphone, but it likely won’t be a match for iPhone 5

Image courtesy of Anandtech

Anandtech has published some interesting findings based on their extensive Samsung Galaxy S II review. It’s the first smartphone to use the graphics processing unit based on the Mali-400 core from ARM Holdings, a fables chip maker from the UK. In fact, Samsung has engineered and manufactured its own system-on-a-chip solution for the handset.

They call it the Exynos 4210 and it combines a dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU core and the aforementioned Mali-400 GPU sporting four cores. The resulting performance, says Anandtech, is comparable to Texas Instruments OMAP 4 chip that incorporates Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR SGX540 GPU core. However, the quad-core 1.2GHz Exynos 4210 probably won’t hold a candle to iPhone 5, which will likely carry the same dual-core processor-GPU combo as the iPad 2′s 1GHz A5 chip:

Samsung implemented a 4-core version of the Mali-400 in the 4210 and its resulting performance is staggering as you can see above. Although it’s still not as fast as the PowerVR SGX 543MP2 found in the iPad 2, it’s anywhere from 1.7 – 4x faster than anything that’s shipping in a smartphone today.
Interestingly, and per the GL Benchmark included below, the Exynos 4210 is more than twice as fast compared to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 that runs Nvidia’s Tegra 2 chip and nearly four times speedier than iPhone 4′s 800 MHz A4 chip that sports the PowerVT SGX535 GPU core. However, the 4210 falls short in the triangle throughput department, a big disadvantage over the iPad 2′s A5 processor that clocks nine times the graphics performance of the original iPad’s A4 chip.

Triangle throughput is important in graphics-intensive games and will become key in “future games that may scale along that vector rather than simply increasing pixel shader complexity”. The video of Anandtech’s Samsung Galaxy S II review below..





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Cross-posted on limerain_com

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- Posted using my iPhone 4