Hands On With Microsoft’s Surface 3

Samsung Electronics Forecasts Q1 Profit Decline, But May Be Poised For Recovery
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Microsoft is back at the well with a new Surface device, the Surface 3. If you’re familiar with the Surface Pro 3, which was released last year, you understand the Surface 3: It’s like the Pro 3 but smaller and less expensive.
The new Surface will cost you $499 at base, a sharp discount from the lowest-tier Surface Pro 3 which tips the scale at $799. Microsoft hopes that it can drive new unit volume with the Surface 3, a bet that presumes that consumers have similar tastes in form factors.

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It’s worth remembering that until the Surface Pro 3, that was an open question on the corporate side of things; the Surface 3 will press the same question to a wider audience.
I sat down with the Surface 3 and its predecessors to get a better feel for the new device. Can it help Microsoft’s hardware dreams come true? Hit play and let’s get started.

By: Unknown On 00:59

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Hands On With The Apple Watch

You Can Keep Your iPhone In Your Pocket. Don’t Believe Me? Just WatchAdvertisementApple’s smartwatch was on display again at today’s special Apple event, and this time we actually got to try a live unit. Last September, we were able to wear the hardware on our wrists, but today units had near-final live software so we got get a better idea of how it will actually work when it ships on April 24.
The Apple Watch’s hardware is of course still quite impressive, with the stainless steel especially catching the eye. The 38mm version still feels better on my wrist, but the 42mm is also not overly large. Apple revealed today that the larger version will be $50 more than its smaller counterpart in most cases, which is good news for those like me who prefer the smaller face.
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The Apple Watch system software was new to us, but it is expectedly intuitive. After so long using all-touch devices, the digital crown does at first take some getting used to, but soon enough it makes as much sense as a navigation input as did the iPod’s clickwheel, if not more so. And when you do use touch input, it’s fast and responsive.
Apple’s ‘taptic’ touch engine is another tentpole feature of the wearable (though it’s also now in the new MacBook) and this works wonderfully in this setting. The engine’s vibration is very subtle and subject to fine tuning, providing a different response though only small variations. Compared to most haptic feedback in wearables that I’ve tried before, it’s almost on a completely different level – whereas you won’t even notice the kludgy vibration motors in a lot of Android Wear devices, taptic feedback is as difficult to ignore as an actual human lightly tapping your wrist.
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Apple’s various apps, including the health and fitness software and the camera remote, make good use of the limited screen space, and the input system ensures you’re never more than a couple taps away from sending messages to your closest friends, or loading up Apple Pay to use at a compatible retailer. The camera remote is especially clever, giving mobile photographers an easy way to capture group shots with themselves included, or to execute carefully timed snaps.
The band options are expectedly comfortable and luxurious, but I still do have occasional problems with the clasp on the sport band, which may get better as you become more used to the mechanism.
What is still probably Apple’s biggest strength with this device is just how much it feels like a watch – you might be surprised how many smartwaches miss this seemingly modest target. I’m a fan of automatic analog watches myself, and the Watch feels comparably at home on my wrist. Some may find it a bit on the thick side, but I’m used to the heavier, thicker cases that usually house automatic (vs. quartz) movement and this one doesn’t seem large by those standards.

By: Unknown On 02:34

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Hands On With The Samsung Galaxy S6 And S6 Edge

Samsung has two brand new smartphones, the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge. It’s a first for the company, in terms of revealing two different versions of its primary flagship on stage at the same time, and we got a chance to try both of them out to see how they perform.
 The resulting experience was impressive in both cases, and while the biggest changes were on the design front, Samsung’s software shifts also came out as very promising overall.Hands On VideoFacebookLinkedInSamsung Galaxy S6 And S6 Edge Hands OnDesign
Galaxy S6

The Galaxy S6 and S6 edge both eschew the usual plastic Samsung has favored for flagships in the past for glass and metal, but the S6 has a more traditional flat front face, as well as a design that can’t help but be compared to iPhone devices, resembling something of a cross between the iPhone 5/5S and the iPhone 6 or 6 Plus. It has a 5.1-inch display with glass both front and back, and with a metal edge running all the way along the outer edge of the phone.
While the Galaxy S6 certainly has iPhone-style cues, it would be overly reductive to say it’s at all a clone or copy. Both the S6 and the S6 edge feature a new special treatment that pairs a reflective coating of metallic paint applied in an ultra-thin layer to the underside of the protective glass surface. The machined metal edge, which is part of a solid frame that extends throughout the body of the S6, actually extends at every point slightly above the glass, which Samsung says is designed to help make sure any impact from a drop is absorbed by the part of the phone which is shatter-resistant, instead of the glass surfaces.
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The S6’s design is already a huge departure from Samsung’s frankly boring past industrial design, injecting some fresh life in a brand that definitely needs to inspire new passion. In the hand, it feels much more premium than the Galaxy S5, and though some die-hard fans of accessible batteries might feel saddened that the S6’s is locked away (and that the SD card slot is also gone), the trade-offs in terms of Samsung finally having made a flagship that doesn’t feel somewhat like a child’s toy are well worth it.
Galaxy S6 Edge

If the Galaxy S6 marks Samsung’s graduation in terms of smartphone industrial design, the S6 edge is a post-doc. While the Note Edge seemed more like an experiment, reserved for users who might be seeking something especially untested and novel, the S6 edge’s sloped sides feel instead like a mostly aesthetic design decision. The two curved edges still house the same single display that occupies almost the entire S6 edge’s front face, rather than covering a discrete screen like on the Note Edge, and it ends up resulting in fewer acrobatics to try to add extraneous features that users don’t need on the software side.
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The S6 edge doubles down on the premium feel of the S6, somehow convincing the brain that it’s a sleeker and slimmer machine than the more traditional Samsung flagship even though it actually isn’t that different in this regard. And combined with the new color effects, and taper of the metal frame where it encounters the curved glass, this is a device that both looks very good and feels nice to hold.
Hardware and Software Features
The new Galaxy S6 offers a number of features that improve the overall experience vs. past devices, but the two most practical might be the use of a single touch fingerprint reader in the home button, which works like Apple’s Touch ID instead of with swipe-based reading like the the GS5, and a double-tap home button shortcut to instantly trigger the camera wherever you happen to be in the OS on your phone.

A redesigned, much lighter user interface with a lot more in common with stock Android 5.0 Lollipop, combined with the new camera shortcut and the actually useful fingerprint sensor (the previous one worked, but was a pain to operate, especially one-handed) all combine to make this one of Samsung’s best-ever efforts out of the box, based on the time we got to spend with the device.
In very limited testing, both the new front and back cameras proved able to take good pictures in lighting that was fairly challenging in terms of mixed brightness and weird color balance. I did manage to take some blurry photos by basically doing my best to foil it, but based on very early experience it seems like it could be a strong contender in terms of Android smartphone camera excellence.
Bottom Line
Samsung’s Galaxy S6 is some ways a less whiz-bang update than others, at least in terms of flashy software features and questionable hardware additions made just with the seeming intent of pushing the envelope. Instead, what they’ve presented is a device that feels in almost every way like a more mature product than anything they’ve shipped previously, with a few smart new features that either 100% improve broken ones from earlier generations, or that genuinely add convenience features people will actually use.
One of Samsung’s best-ever efforts out of the box.
Despite Samsung’s tremendous global success in terms of device sales and market share, it has never offered my personal favorite Android hardware. The S6 and S6 edge actually stand a good chance of earning that distinction this time around, thanks in large part to a design that finally screams ‘premium’ when touched or held.

By: Unknown On 11:54

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