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.
If you are a friend of mirrorless digital cameras it probably means that compactness is high on your priority list. Though much info has been coming in on the autofocus speed and high-ISO performance of the newly announced Olympus OM-D E-M5 Micro Four Thirds (MFT) camera, we haven’t really tackled its size compared to other mirrorless camera.
continue reading
The HTC One X a.k.a. Endeavor a.k.a. Edge is the company’s worst kept secret. We first heard of the quad-core Tegra 3 smartphone back in November last year and information has been trickling in since then. We already knew that the HTC Endeavor would be sporting a large 4.7-inch optically laminated display with a 720p resolution, but now we some additional information. Namely that it will utilize a Super LCD instead of an AMOLED panel. HTC has been going with S-LCD displays for its most recent flagship smartphones, with both the Sensation and the Rezound featuring the technology.
continue reading
When considering SD cards, which live mostly inside our devices, stylish design is pretty low on our list of priorities. Nevertheless, Samsung is on a mission to beautify its entire line of electronics, hence meet its new SD and microSD cards featuring a brushed metal exterior. But been being really, really good looking is not their only property, the new cards have some serious rugged credentials.
The seven new SD and microSD card models are waterproof, shockproof and magnet proof. Samsung guarantees the cards will survive up to 24 hours submerged in water, can withstand a 3,200 lbs force (you can drive a 1.6 ton vehicle over them) and even a magnetic field up to 10,000 gauss won’t be enough to screw up your data.
continue reading
Continuing with its line of feline-themed desktop operating systems Apple has just released some details on its next generation Mac OS X 10.8 operating system, code-named Mountain Lion. Of course Mac OS X 10.7 Lion was just released last summer, but Apple already has been working hard on the next iteration. In fact Apple is moving into an accelerated release schedule and will now start updating its OS X software once a year.
As Apple itself puts it, many of the upcoming new features in Mac OS X Mountain Lion have been inspired by iOS and the iPad. The features include an integrated notification center, deeper iCloud integration and AirPlay mirroring. The new OS will also include Messages, which is an app inspired by iOS iMessages, anyone running OS X Lion can already download the beta now here.
continue reading
HTC has already promised March 2012 Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) updates for its Sensation series smartphones worldwide, but some lucky users might be getting an early taste very soon. The company just sent us word that it will be updating a limited number of Sensation and Sensation XE handsets in Europe to the latest version of Android and its own Sense 4.0 UI.
HTC is calling it an “early access preview” so that a few hundred users can play around with the new software and hopefully share the experience with the rest of the Android community. HTC will be doing similar sort of previews with other handsets in the future. As a reminder, the HTC Sensation, Sensation 4G, Sensation XE and Sensation XL should all get Android ICS updates by the end of March.
continue reading
In the run up to the release of Photoshop CS6, Adobe has been showing off some of the new features we should be expecting in the latest version of the popular photo editing application. Previous videos from Adobe showed off the updated user interface, which has borrowed some of its dark looks from Lightroom, and the new content-aware fill tool that was first introduced in CS5 but now updated to allow you to select the source for the fill.
Well the latest feature, called content-aware move, in Adobe’s tool belt looks even more amazing. The new feature allows you to select objects in your photographs and move them around; i.e. you can make a rough selection of an object or person in your photo then select where you want to move it, Photoshop will cut it from the frame, try to fill in the empty space and then move it to the new location. The new content-aware move feature looks scarily simple but you can have a look for yourself in the video below.
continue reading
Potentially bad news for anyone waiting on a 32GB GSM/HSPA+ version of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus (full review here), a number of retailers are claiming that the device has been cancelled. The 16GB GSM version has been shipping since last November with a 32GB version having been promised, while the CDMA/LTE US version ships with 32GB of storage as standard.
continue reading
If you’ve been aching to put your Mac’s Thunderbolt port, and your savings, to good use, LaCie has just released its 2big Thunderbolt series external drives. You can get the 2big drives at 4TB and 6TB capacities right now for $650 and $800 respectively, though an 8TB drive is also on the way. The drives take advantage of Thunderbolt’s throughput for up to 327MB/s transfer speeds. You can also choose between RAID 0 for performance or RAID 1 for data redundancy and security.
The drives feature hot-swappable disks and dual Thunderbolt ports so you can daisy chain multiple drives together. Daisy chaining multiple drives increases the amount of storage available and pushes the overall performance to more than 670MB/s.
continue reading
NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 quad-core SoC is said to appear on more than one device at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona by the end of the month. One of these is the LG X3, which we first saw last month.
We’re pretty sure this will be LG’s flagship Android handset for 2012, with a 4.7-inch screen and 720p resolution. It will run Android 4.0 Ice Cream sandwich on a, as mentioned, 1.5GHz NVIDIA Tegra 3 chip, which features some pretty smart power saving features so hopefully it won’t be too taxing for its 2,000mAh battery.
continue reading
We’ve all more or less faced the same issue. You’re trying to take the picture of a loved one or a postcard worthy photo of a beautiful monument, yet all these other moving ‘objects’ keep coming into your frame. Well you could take a number of photos and then use a PC photo editing application, like Photoshop, to get rid of unwanted people in the photo but that’s hardly very convenient. The solution comes from Scalado, a mobile device imaging specialist. The company has just announced a new software technology called Remove that allows you to remove unwanted objects from images on the fly.
First, you take a shot with your mobile device’s camera, then you select unwanted objects from the captured image by using your device’s touchscreen. The software takes a number of additional shots and using some clever imaging technology, stitches them up on the fly to produce a cleaned-up result. Of course Remove only works with moving objects, i.e. people or other members of the animal kingdom.
continue reading
We can’t deny that the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Micro Four Thirds (MFT) digital camera stole our hearts. However the big question in our minds has been on how the camera would perform at low light and/or high ISO. Typically, Micro Four Thirds cameras have lagged other mirrorless cameras with larger sensors, like Sony’s NEX series, in this regard.
We’re still far off from the April ship date of the Olympus E-M5, so we can’t yet test the low light and high ISO performance on a production unit, however a number of high ISO shots taken with a pre-production model have been doing the rounds.
continue reading
Apple follows a once a year update cycle for most of its main products. The company has, like clockwork, updated the iPhone and the iPad every year since their release, personal computers like the MacBook Air, have also enjoyed regular yearly updates.
We’ve been hearing of the iPad 3 for quite a while now, as with many Apple products, rumors started practically as soon as the current generation iPad 2 hit the market. However, now we’re seemingly getting close to the actual announcement of the iPad 3 that should come within the next few weeks. Initially we reported on the possibility of an Apple event this month, now the word on the street is that Apple may hold a new iPad event on the first week of March.
continue reading
We’ve been following the HTC Edge in its long road of becoming the world’s first quad-core smartphone for some time now. The Edge was first leaked back in November last year and while we are expecting an official announcement soon, it seems that it has been renamed to Endeavor.
Besides the name change, the HTC Endeavor is still the same at heart, said to be running on a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 SoC maxing out at 1.5GHz. It will have a large 4.7-inch optically laminated 720p HD display — optical lamination gets rid of the air gap between the touchscreen and the front glass, improving image quality and touch experience. HTC’s new flagship smartphone with run on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with HTC’s new Sense 4.0 UI.
continue reading
Although Dell was first to test the waters with a 5-inch smartphone/tablet (or phablet or tabletphone), the Streak 5 met very lukewarm response and has been defunct since last summer. Yet Samsung’s 5.3-inch stylus-friendly Galaxy Note smartphone has been quite a success.
Not to be outdone by its fellow Korean competitor, LG is getting its own oversized device ready and has posted a teaser video of the Optimus Vu, a 5-inch smartphone with an old-school 4:3 aspect ratio IPS display and a 1024 x 768 resolution. The 4:3 ratio gives the Optimus Vu a more stocky profile, compared to the Samsung Galaxy Note’s 16:9 1280 x 800 screen, though it would be better suited for certain taks like web browsing or reading books in portrait mode. You can see a side-by-side comparison of the two below.
continue reading
Fujifilm X100S camera announced with fast AF and new 16.3MP X-Trans II sensor (hands-on video)January 6, 2013
Supposed Sony Nexus X images leakOctober 15, 2012
Asus 4.7-inch Padfone 2 demoed in video with new slimmer tablet dockOctober 14, 2012
Upcoming Google Nexus 4 smartphone by LG poses for camera in leaked picsOctober 11, 2012
Skype for Android with video chat official for some, unofficially for Galaxy S II, HTC Evo 3D, Thunderbolt, Sensation and othersJuly 1, 2011
Stuff-Review giveaway: win a B&N Nook Color, leather case and 4GB microSD cardOctober 12, 2011
Stuff-Review giveaway: win a PowerSkin silicon case with built-in batteryAugust 21, 2011
Connecting the Galaxy Nexus to your computer via MTP and the lack of USB Mass StorageDecember 10, 2011
