Some may deride the Kindle Fire for having a boring appearance. After all, it’s nothing but a black rectangle. But those who think there’s something wrong with that either have very little imagination or they’ve never seen 2001: A Space Odyssey. If they had, they’d know that sometimes wonderful things can come of featureless, monolithic slabs of black.
Okay, the Kindle Fire isn’t that cool, and it certainly isn’t going to be the impetus behind any evolutionary leap – for mankind, tablet, or even eReader – but it’s a pretty neat device nonetheless that effectively blows the doors off its eReader antecedents. But does being “neat” make it worth its $199 asking price, or should you hang onto that new Kindle or Kindle Keyboard a little longer? Keep reading to find out for yourself.
BUILD & DESIGN
The Kindle Fire is minimalist at its core and suspiciously resembles the BlackBerry PlayBook, and those who crave simplicity will likely find much to drool over in the Fire. Inspecting the Fire’s outer edges, all you’ll find are two small speakers on its top edge, and on its bottom edge a power button, headphone jack, and microUSB charging port. Bizarrely, the charging cable that comes included with the Fire can only be plugged into a wall socket, it’s not a micro-to-full USB cable, so if charging through your computer’s USB port is something you prefer, you’ve already got an additional accessory to buy. Read the rest of this entry »
IMPOSSIBLY THIN
With an impossibly thin design, RAZR is a marvel of engineering — one you’ll want to show off to the world. Thinner than your friends’ smartphones, it’s better looking too, with sculpted glass and diamond-cut aluminum accents.
SUPER STRONG, NOT SUPER SIZED
Thin no longer equals frail. We made RAZR strong with KEVLAR® fibre, while Corning® Gorilla® Glass helps the screen stand up to scratches and scrapes. Spilled coffee? Caught in the rain? No problem. RAZR is protected with a splash-guard coating — even the electrical boards inside.
DUAL-CORE POWER
Full-tilt boogie is just your style — and RAZR can keep up. The powerful dual-core 1.2 GHz processor lets you act as fast as you can think (finally), while the 1GB of RAM keeps the momentum going.
MOTOCAST™: ANYTIME, ANYWHERE ACCESS
MotoCast, a free Motorola app built in to RAZR, lets you safely and effortlessly stream music, movies and more from your PC. Across the street or across the country, you can rock your playlists or flip through pictures, without using up your phone’s memory.
A DISPLAY TO PUT ON DISPLAY
Whether you stream or download movies, the hyper-vibrant colours of the Super AMOLED Advanced display make watching flicks on-the-go just as thrilling as watching at home on your HDTV. And zero motion-blur technology keeps the action smooth, so you can focus on the story. Read the rest of this entry »
How much does Android 4.0 mean to you? How much do you need to have it right now? Because that’s the dilemma with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone ($299-$649). Overall it’s not quite as good a phone as the Motorola Droid RAZR ($299, 4.5 stars). But right now, it’s the only phone running Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), and that’s the future.
In many ways, this is the ultimate early adopter phone. The phone itself isn’t perfect; typically, Nexus phones aren’t the best hardware on the market. But the software takes a major leap forward, with everything from a better Gmail experience to a faster browser and the ability to put folders on your home screens. Do you need that right now? Then yes, you need the Nexus.
Physical Design
The Galaxy Nexus is a well-built but not extraordinary Samsung phone—which is to say, it’s a giant piece of relatively well-engineered plastic. There’s none of the metal and glass accents you see on top-of-the-line Motorola or Apple phones. Read the rest of this entry »
