Galaxy Note 3 gets Red and Rose Gold options in the UK

The new Samsung Galaxy Note 3 color options continue their global tour and have now hit the UK. Those are the Red, Rose Gold White and Rose Gold Black.



The first two are available from Carphone Warehouse and start at £32 a month on contract. Contracts are available for all major UK carriers.



Phones4u has the other Rose Gold version, the one based on the black Galaxy Note 3. That out is £37 a month, again with offers from all major carriers in the country.



The Rose Gold version replaces the silver highlights of the regular Note 3 with gold. The plastic panels comes in either white or black as before, while the red version swaps them out but goes back to silver highlights.

The Rose Gold White option is available exclusively on Verizon in the US. In Korea, these options have been available for a while, but were now transferred to the Galaxy S4 LTE-A.

Read More »

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo vs Note II: first look

Samsung's first mid-range phablet, the Galaxy Note 3 Neo, comes as a direct competitor to the Note II, which still sells globally, as they share very similar specs. Both sport 5.5” HD 720p displays, have 2 GB of RAM and 8 MP cameras on the back. Let's take a first look whether Samsung has managed to differentiate the smaller Note 3 enough to make people grab it before the also-affordable Note II.















Design
Despite the same display size, the Note 3 Neo is much shorter, less wide, and lighter than the Note II, so it is way more pocket-friendly, and easier to operate with one hand. It still sports a removable back cover with the new faux leather design, so you can quickly swap the battery or add more storage, just like on the Note II. The S Pen stylus is tucked the same way you'd find it on the Note 2, but it is side-agnostic, so you can insert it back in any position, and seems to pop in and out easier.

Display
Both phablets have 5.5” Super AMOLED displays with 720x1280 pixels of resolution, which works out to a 267ppi pixel density of the panels. This HD resolution means that detail and small text won't be as defined as on Full HD displays, but the density is enough for most everyday purposes, including doodling with the S Pen stylus. Because of the Super AMOLED tech, you can expect oversaturated, somewhat cold colors, deep blacks, and excellent viewing angles from both Notes.


Interface
The phablets sports Samsung's TouchWiz on top of Android Jelly Bean, but our prototype Note 3 Neo flaunts a newer version of both Android, and TouchWiz , plus we hope to see KitKat on it shortly, while the Note 2 is stuck on TouchWiz 4.0, and Android 4.1.

The smaller Note 3 also carries all the bells and whistles that come with Samsung's homemade interface overlay, like Smart Stay, which keeps the screen on while you are looking at it, and the multi-window mode that can run two different apps on a split screen.

The display size of the two Notes is very conducive to multitasking, which is enhanced by the stylus-specific apps like S Note, various drawing and annotating functions in the Gallery or Calendar, as well as the Air View and Air Gestures that let you hover above the display with the stylus or a finger and call pop-up info.


Processor and memory
There's a new hexacore Exynos in the Note 3 Neo, with two Cortex-A15 cores, clocked at 1.7 GHz maximum, and four Cortex-A7 ones, clocked at 1.3 GHz. There is also a 3G version of the phablet with 1.6 GHz quad-core processor, likely the same one that's in the note II. The hexacore Exynos is paired with a decent graphics processor, too, ARM's Mali-T624, so it's unlikely you'll have interface or app lag and hiccups.

It is clocked a tad higher than the 1.6 GHz quad-core Exynos 4412 in the Note II, but has only two cores capable of the full speed, so the difference in benchmarks is unlikely to be significant. The GPU, however, comes faster than Mali-400 in the Note II.

Samsung has put 2 GB of RAM in both phablets, as well as16 GB of internal memory, plus a microSD slot for storage expansion.


Camera
The handsets sport 8 MP camera on the back with LED flash, as well as a 1.9 MP front-facing shooters for video chat. Samsung's interface offers an abundance of shooting modes like HDR or Panorama, which on the Note 3 Neo are arranged in an easy to flip through carousel, while on the Note II they are in a grid-like thumbnail format. We did some samples with the Neo, but will comment when the retail version lands, with the camera expected to be at least as good, if not better than the one on the Note II. Both phones are able to capture 1080p video footage with 30fps.











Expectations
Note 3 Neo is actually the better alternative to a Note II, even though they are likely to be close in terms of price range. It is way more compact, despite sporting the same screen size, has newer software, and the next generation of the S Pen. The design and overall appearance are also more alluring, which would make the mid-range Note 3 Neo preferable to 2012's Note II.

Read More »

Sony introduces two new Handycam models with projectors at CES 2014

For shooting videos, nothing comes in handier than a small camcorder. For actually viewing those videos, nothing is more frustrating. We’re often left to huddle around the small screen, or fumble with cables in an attempt to tether it to a TV or monitor. Sony has an interesting new take on viewing video, which we got the chance to check out at CES 2014.Their new lineup of Camcorders with projectors built right in seems like unnecessary novelty, but we’re not so sure about that.

To start, their lineup of full HD camcorders are really nice offerings on their own. Optical Steady Shot and 60x zoom bring the best Sony has to offer in camcorder technology, and has all the Sony acoutremants like the BIONZ X processor and Exmor sensor. Bump up to the PJ540 from the PJ340 and you get a better viewfinder, 5.1 channel microphone, and lighting. Both models come with a 25-lumen projector, which Sony has cobbled into a camcorder before, but these are a step up from their previous offerings.

Projectors can be suspect, especially in such a small package, but Sony has a pleasant offering here. We displayed video up to about 10 feet away with no problem, but you shouldn’t expect the best of both worlds with this one. The projector lacks things like focus we’d find with a standalone, but in such a small package, we’re impressed nonetheless.

Sony tells us these will be available this summer, but you should probably be sure you need them. We’re told the PJ340 will check in around $499, and the upgraded PJ540 will hit the $699 mark. Good camcorders in their own right, these are two that have the interesting projector added on, which is reflected in the price.

Read More »

Galaxy Note 3 mini (or Neo) brings line back a couple steps

A device with the (code) name Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo has appeared this week with specifications and a look that suggest Samsung is going back to basics. It’s like a combination of the Galaxy Note 3’s pen and back panel and he rest coming from the original Galaxy Note - even the camera and the LED flash are in the same place. Inspect these leaked images while you can.
You’ll find this device appearing through a leaked set of images from SamMobile where they suggest this device may be revealed in full at Mobile World Congress 2014. We’re not even a day out of CES 2014 and it’s time to move on, it would seem.

This device is tipped as working with a 5.55-inch display with Super AMOLED technology and 1280 x 720 pixels across it. That’s 265PPI, if you’re counting, and it’s attached to an 8-megapixel camera as well. Supposing you’ve not already agreed that this machine is made up of the parts of the original Galaxy Note, you’ll love it when it’s revealed that you’ve got a 3100mAh battery and what’s likely to be some sort of Qualcomm Snapdragon processor due to its ability to roll with 4G LTE.

Inside you can work with a microSD for memory expansion, or you can stick with this machine’s 16GB of internal storage right out of the box. It’s got four CPU cores and a couple of GPU cores at least. THere’s NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, and an IR-blaster in this machine as well - and USB 3.0 for good measure.

UPDATE: It would now appear that we’re actually working with the Samsung-made Exynos 5260 hexa-core processor in this device. That means “Heterogeneous Multi-Processing”, or HMP, which also means the ability to roll with 6 cores at once. Strange stuff indeed.

Read More »

iPhone 6 camera tipped to retain 8-megapixel sensor

It’s been suggested this week by suppliers overseas that Apple’s next iPhone will continue to work with an 8-megapixel sensor. While this - for those of you only counting these megapixels - means that the end resulting photos will be the same amount of pixels wide and tall, there’s still plenty of room left for improving the resulting images therein. It’s also been suggested that Apple’s current OIS - optical image stabilization - will be improved in their upcoming engine.

The tip comes from Nomura Securities in China where the China Post reports their chat with the team - apparently there’s been a rumor of similar parts being used in the next iPhone compared to the one that’s out right this minute. This bit of news apparently had adverse effects on Largan Precision, suppliers of Apple’s camera module.

Stocks “tumbled” for Largan once it was suggested in China that Apple’s next iPhone will not work with a 16-megapixel camera as it’s been anticipated by “industry observers”. Instead it could very well be that Apple’s improvements in the camera environment will be to the image quality, not the size of the image

In other words - the misconception that the amount of megapixels you’ve got is the most important factor in the quality of your camera prevails. Apple’s mod recent camera works with larger pixels and a new and improved flash module - next we’ll likely see tweaking in the pixels and the delivery once again. Stick around as the iPhone 6 rumors and leaks continue for the next several months at least!

VIA: MacRumors

Read More »