Alexis Philippides

Website: https://www.stuff-review.com

Email: alexis@stuff-review.com

Profile: Alexis is the founder of Stuff-Review and the primary editor. He's a blogger, an engineer and a web entrepreneur. Alexis has been building and managing websites for over 12 years. An eternal sufferer from gadget lust, he tries to keep his passion in check by writing overly lengthy pieces on technology and consumer electronics. Soft spots include digital cameras, high-end audio separates and portable devices. At times, his electrical engineering background peers out in technically convoluted articles, but otherwise he provides down-to-earth reporting.

Latest posts by Alexis Philippides:

LG Optimus 4X HD official: 4.7-inch quad-core Tegra 3 smartphone with Android 4.0

News

  • February 23, 2012 at 5:38 am

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LG Optimus 4X HD Tegra 3 Android smartphone

It’s no secret that we will be seeing a lot of Tegra 3 devices at MWC 2012, but LG has just beat everyone else to officially announce the first quad-core smartphone, named Optimus 4X HD (a.k.a. LG X3). Looking past LG’s lengthy naming convention, the new smartphone will certainly become the flagship for its 2012 lineup. It’s a massive 4.7-inch device with a 720p HD IPS LCD display running on the 1.5GHz quad-core (or 4-PLUS-1 as NVIDIA calls it) Tegra 3 SoC. Inside that 8.9mm thin body, you’ll find 1GB of RAM, 16GB of built-in storage and a not too shabby 2,150mAh battery.

The Optimus 4X HD will be running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and we’ve already seen that Tegra 3 SoC grabbing a 4,412 Quadrant score, handily beating other ICS devices like the Galaxy Nexus (full review here).
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Gadget lust: five new official videos on the Olympus OM-D E-M5

News

  • February 22, 2012 at 3:54 pm

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Olympus E-M5 Micro Four Thirds digital camera front

Olympus Australia has posted five new videos covering every facet of the new Olympus OM-D E-M5 Micro Four Thirds mirrorless camera. The demo videos cover the 5-axis in-body image stabilization, the camera’s superfast autofocus with 3D object tracking, 9 frames per second burst shooting and the new electronic viewfinder.

We’ve especially noted how much Olympus has improved on the software for the camera. There are three different styles of information overlay in the EVF and some innovative creative controls, like an adjustable highlight and shadow curve. The latest info point to an early-April shipping date for the camera, which can be pre-ordered now in the US here and here, UK here and Germany here.
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Google Docs for Android update brings real-time collaborative editing and rich text

News

  • February 22, 2012 at 3:00 pm

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Google Docs Android app

Google has just announced a new version of its Google Docs for Android app, that won’t just let you edit documents on the go, but will also allow you to co-edit them in realtime with other users.

Google is mirroring the same desktop experience on Android mobile devices, so provided you have an active data connection on your smartphone or tablet, you’ll be able to see live updates in documents as others type or their computers or mobile devices and you can easily join in or invite others to collaborate on your own documents.
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Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 SoC benchmarked, wipes the floor with last generation chips

News

  • February 22, 2012 at 10:56 am

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Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Mobile Development Platform - MSM8960

The rising popularity of mobile devices has made some system on chips (SoCs) household names. One of these, is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon family of SoCs found in some of the finest smartphones and tablets. Qualcomm has been talking about its new Snapdragon S4 (“Krait”) architecture based on a 28 nm process for some time now and we’re expecting to finally see devices running on the SoC at Mobile World Congress next week. Yet, it had been unclear what the performance advantage would be from the new architecture.

The fellows over at AnandTech recently got to take home a Qualcomm S4 Mobile Development Platform, which is a posh name for a test smartphone, containing the first chip from the family, an MSM8960. The MSM8960 has dual 1.5GHz Krait cores, an Adreno 225 GPU and integrated support for practically all wireless radio technologies out there, including HSPA+ and LTE.
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Microsoft shows off Windows 8 SkyDrive cloud integration: Metro style app, sync and large file support

News

  • February 20, 2012 at 2:05 pm

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Windows 8 SkyDrive integration - Metro style app

We’ve been following the development updates from the Windows 8 team for a while now and we had no doubts that Microsoft would be adding some sort of cloud integration into the new operating system. We are users of Microsoft’s SkyDrive cloud storage service and although you can already mount it as a network drive on Windows PCs you had so far been limited on the functionality and use.

Windows 8 will be offering much tighter integration with SkyDrive, actually in pretty equivalent terms to what Apple is doing with iCloud in the upcoming OS X Mountain Lion.
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Olympus E-M5 destroys the PEN E-P3 in high-ISO tests

News

  • February 20, 2012 at 10:09 am

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Olympus OM-D E-M5 MFT camera in black side with 12-50mm lens

We’ve been covering the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Micro Four Thirds (MFT) digital camera ever since it was initially rumored and following the official announcement two weeks ago, we now have a long wait until it finally ships this April. We’ve already done a spec comparison to other high-end mirrorless cameras and we’ve seen how it sizes-up against the competition, but of bigger importance is how it actually performs and especially in low-light — a sticking point for the otherwise excellent MFT format.

The first high-ISO test of the Olympus E-M5 showed some promise, with little noise or artifacts up to ISO 3,200. During the weekend, Four-Thirds User has posted a high-ISO comparison between the E-M5 and the previous generation Olympus PEN E-P3. As previously, the test was done with a pre-production version of the E-M5 but the results are impressive.
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Google Goggles app can now recognize amongst 45,000 types of banknotes

News

  • February 19, 2012 at 12:06 pm

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Google Goggles app currency recognition

Google’s Goggles app is striving to become a Swiss army knife for globetrotters. Using your device’s camera and an active data connection, Goggles can recognize landmarks and famous artworks and more recently it can even translate text on the fly.

The always-active Google development team has been adding even more capabilities to Goggles and it has just enabled the app to recognize between more than 45,000 types of currency from over 300 countries. Currently the app is limited to banknotes, and as usual you just take a picture of the note and it will come back with the type, amount and links to further information.
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Purported iPad 3 leaked photo shows larger lens 8-megapixel camera and gentler curvature

News

  • February 19, 2012 at 10:31 am

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iPad 3 leaked back with new camera and gentler curvature

We’re expecting an iPad 3 announcement early next month. We won’t be repeating all the earlier rumors in this post but you can check our timeline below. One of these rumors points to the obvious inclusion of a higher resolution rear camera with a bigger lens. So today, a Chinese publication claims to have images of the iPad 3 showing the refreshed back of the device.
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Your Fujifilm X100 overexposes images? How to check for the sticky aperture blade issue (video)

Guides

  • February 19, 2012 at 9:51 am

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Fujifilm X100 sticky aperture blade issue, close-up of lens at F16 shutter button pressed

The Fujifilm X100 is an amazing camera (and you can read our extensive real world review here), but it is plagued by one well documented manufacturing defect — at least the early batches of this mirrorless camera. The ‘sticky aperture blade’ issue results in the lens diaphragm blades not closing down as they should and hence leaving the aperture wide-open even at increasing f-numbers f/8, f/11 and f/16.

The first indication that your X100 may be suffering from the sticky blade problem would be if it tends to overexpose images. Because the aperture doesn’t close as it should on high f-numbers, more light reaches the sensor and results in an overexposed image. The issue won’t be apparent at wide apertures, like f/2 for example.
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Galaxy Nexus case review: Case-Mate POP!

Reviews

  • February 19, 2012 at 5:19 am

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Case-Mate POP! case for Galaxy Nexus - back

Case-Mate does one thing, it makes cases, the kind our devices need; especially costly devices with big glass fronts that we carry all day with us and might take a fall or two. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone is such a device and its slippery plastic body also doesn’t help at all — as you will find by reading our in-depth review right here.

We’ve already reviewed one case for the Galaxy Nexus, the OtterBox Defender, but we understand that it might be overkill for some as it adds significant bulk. This review will look at the Case-Mate POP!. It’s a one piece case that’s made of two materials, a shiny hard plastic and a soft rubber side grip. The rubber is grey but the shiny plastic comes in black, white and pink, creating a “pop”, see!
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LG Optimus Vu is official: 5-inch 4:3 IPS display, 1.5GHz dual-core SoC, LTE and 8.5mm thick

News

  • February 19, 2012 at 4:38 am

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LG Optimus Vu 5.3-inch Android smartphone held by model pointing to maps

LG’s entrance in the phablet (phone/tablet) space is now official. The LG Optimus Vu has been announced today on the company’s Korean website. The stocky 5-inch device has a unique 4:3 aspect ratio with a 1024×768 display resolution. The Optimus Vu goes head-on against Samsung’s 5.3-inch 16:9 aspect ratio 1280×800 resolution Galaxy Note.

The Optimus Vu runs on a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm SoC and has an 8-megapixel rear camera, 32GB of built-in storage and support for LTE connectivity. Similar to the Galaxy Nexus, it’s also boasting stylus support for taking notes, annotating images and documents and drawing. It will be running Android 2.3 Gingerbread on release in early March but LG is promising an Ice Cream Sandwich update within 3 months.
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Fujifilm X-S1 26x superzoom bridge camera takes on a Canon DSLR (video)

News

  • February 18, 2012 at 1:07 pm

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Fujifilm X-S1 vs. Canon T3 (1100D) shootout

We’ll admit that we are generally pretty harsh when it comes to superzoom bridge cameras. These are cameras that look like DSLRs but have fixed zoom lenses and sensors much smaller than APS-C. This means that you can’t change lenses, e.g. use any fast and sharp prime lenses, and bridge camera have worse low-light performance than DSLRs.

When we first had a look at Fujifilm’s latest 12-megapixel 26x superzoom X-S1 bridge camera we weren’t too intrigued, especially because of the hefty $800 price point. For the price of the Fujifilm X-S1 you can get an entry DSLR, which has some undisputed benefits, like the bigger sensor and optical viewfinder.
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OS X Mountain Lion may drop support for some older Macs

News

  • February 18, 2012 at 11:34 am

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OS X Mountain Lion Messages

Although Apple’s recently demoed OS X Mountain Lion may not be such a huge upgrade from OS X Lion, the same way Windows 8 will be over Windows 7, yet the new operating system for Macs does come with a set of minimum hardware requirements.

Apparently some Mac models, that can run OS X 10.7 Lion, could be out of luck when it comes to upgrading to the latest OS X 10.8 on public launch this summer. The compatibility list below was compiled by a developer and is based on the Developer Preview of Mountain Lion, so by the time the new OS hits gold state and is released to the masses, more models may be added. This is not an official Apple list.
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