Alexis Philippides

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:

Motorola Xoom 2 10.1-inch and Xoom 2 Media Edition 8.2-inch Android tablets announced with UK and Ireland mid-November release date (specs, pictures, video)

News

November 3, 2011 at 10:30 am

Motorola has officially announced the Xoom 2 and Xoom 2 Media Edition Android tablets. We can’t say we are surprised here, as the two tablets have been long-rumored. The Motorola Xoom 2 is a business-centric 10.1-inch HD display tablet running Android 3.2 Honeycomb (obviously no Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich at launch as this is a Galaxy Nexus exclusive). It measures 253.9 mm x 173.6 mm x 8.8 mm and weights 599g (1.32lbs) – 100g lighter than the original Xoom.

The Motorola Xoom 2 Media Edition, shrinks down to an 8.2-inch HD panel measuring 39mm x 216mm x 8.99 mm and weighing 386g (0.85lbs). Otherwise, in terms of specifications the two tablets are similar. Both run on 1.2GHz dual-core processors with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. They have a Gorilla Glass displays and a splash-guard coating, something we’ve recently seen on the Motorola RAZR, to protect them against accidental spills.

Motorola claims that the Xoom 2 Media Edition will be easier to hold because of the smaller footprint, while it has a wide 178-degree viewing angle. Graphics performance is also mentioned to be 20% better than the original Xoom. The Xoom 2 also comes with a host of business centric applications and Motorola will be offering a stylus as an accessory.

There is no word yet on U.S. availability, but the two tablets will be available in the UK and Ireland mid-November. The Xoom 2 with initially retail for £325+VAT ($520) and £299+VAT ($480) for the Xoom 2 Media Edition. Motorola has confirmed that the two tablets will eventually be getting Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich shortly after Google provides the code to Motorola.

Full specs, pictures and video after the break.
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How to: Root the Samsung Galaxy Note and install ClockworkMod recovery

Guides

November 3, 2011 at 7:48 am

The 5.3-inch Samsung Galaxy Note tablet-phone (or is it phone-tablet) has only been out for a week now. Well, it took less than that for the device to get rooted and ClockworkMod (CWM) recovery to be installed. This means that you can run all sorts of applications requiring root and potentially install custom ROMs for the device or even overclock it. Rooting was performed by the never-tiring Android community and it has certainly helped that Samsung doesn’t go out of its way to lock-out its phones. The rooting methods are very similar to that of the established Galaxy S II, which explains why it was achieved so fast.

There are several ways to achieve root and install CWM recovery on the Galaxy Note. One method, involves downloading and running the zengRush Revolutionary tool, for one-click root — step-by-step instructions after the break.

A second method, proposed in the video also after the break, involves flashing CWM using a Windows PC and then installing the SuperUser zip through recovery. Be aware that, as always, taking the rooting and custom ROM route, involves the risk of ending up with a dead device.

Another, bigger disclaimer here is that, flashing a custom ROM could invalidate your warranty with Samsung. Similarly to the SGS II, the Galaxy Note has a flash counter, i.e. every time you flash a custom ROM or kernel to the Note the counter goes up by one. If something happens to your device and you send it in to Samsung, they might refuse to service it under warranty if you counter is not zero. Currently there is no way to reset the flash counter (though a method might be devised), so be careful with flashing any custom ROM before a method is confirmed.

So, with all that out of the way, if you are really sure you want to take the risk, fully charge your Galaxy Note, grab your USB cable and sit in front of your Windows PC (unfortunately no Mac instructions yet), and head over after the break for the full how-to.
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Zinio digital magazine app is now available for webOS and the HP TouchPad

News

November 3, 2011 at 3:34 am

The, now-defunct, HP TouchPad‘s utility just went up a notch, as the Zinio magazine reader app has now been released for webOS. Zinio is a popular digital magazine newsstand application, offering a truly huge and varied collection of popular and niche magazines. Zinio has been available so far for the iPad, iPhone, Android, Mac and Windows PCs. You can buy digital subscriptions or single issues and your library automatically syncs between devices.

I can’t think of a better use for the TouchPad than to be able to automatically download and read all your favorite magazines. We were pretty up-front on our view of the ephemeral use of the paper and ink invested in printed magazines, in our Nook Color review, and Zinio might just be the killer app for the TouchPad. Only negative is that Zinio’s prices are a bit on the high side.

You can now download Zinio on your TouchPad from the app catalog. Note that some users are reporting issues with syncing their existing libraries to the TouchPad, however this is the first release for webOS, hopefully the folks at Zinio will iron out any kinks quickly.
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Tweephone is the analog lover’s Twitter client

News

November 2, 2011 at 3:58 am

It’s one of those concepts that had to be created, the marriage of an analogue rotary phone with a tweeter client. Ladies and gentlemen we present to you the Tweephone. The brainchild of UP Digital Bureau and the creation of Unteleported tech agency. Running on an Arduino platform, it translates dial turns to characters. You only have to pick-up the handset and go through the arduous, but ultimately rewarding, task of dialing each letter of your allotted 140-character limit. For example to get an ‘a’ you would have to dial ‘2’ once, and to get an ‘f’ you need to dial ‘3’ three times. The Tweephone displays tweets, as you ‘spin them’ on a very fashionable alphanumeric liquid crystal display. To send the tweet you just hang-up the phone.

You can find a lovely video of the Tweephone after the break. Oh and could someone, please, please send us a tweet using the Tweephone!
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Android Market 3.3.11 update brings update over Wi-Fi only, auto-update apps default

News

November 2, 2011 at 3:14 am

A new version of the Android Market is making the rounds, now automatically updating on select handsets, version 3.3.11. Although there are minor visual changes such as a new Market icon, more prominent star ratings, large apps have a small ‘Wi-Fi’ icon, a microphone for voice input on Market search and other interface tweaks, most major changes involve giving you more control. You can now choose to auto-update apps as a default, previously you had to select auto-update for each application, and there is an option to ‘update over Wi-Fi only’, which is a welcome addition if you want to avoid eating up your monthly data plan allocation just for downloading another Angry Birds update. Finally you can select to automatically add shortcuts for downloaded applications to your homescreen (like in Android Honeycomb).

If you are the impatient type you can download the Market .apk file (after the break) and try it out for yourself, or play it safe and wait for your device to autoupdate. Mind you, that this file doesn’t behave well with Honeycomb tablets. If you do install the file below, go to Settings > Applications > Manage Apps > Market and select ‘clear data’ if the Market is misbehaving.
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Verizon bound HTC Rezound (a.k.a. Vigor) pre-production model shown-off in hands-on video

News

October 31, 2011 at 1:43 pm

We’re expecting HTC and Verizon to announce the HTC Rezound (a.k.a. HTC Vigor) any day now. A lucky tester, has made a video of a pre-production model of the Rezound and has, of-course, posted it for all of us to see. The 4.3-inch, red-themed, Android smartphone shown-off here, carries both the Verzion and 4G LTE logos. The tester confirms all the specs that we originally reported. That is, that the HTC Rezound will run on a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, feature a retina busting 1280×720 HD resolution, have 1GB of RAM with an 8MP back and 2MP front cameras. It’s running Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread and HTC’s Sense 3.5.

The Rezound is going head-to-head with some pretty heavy competition from Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus and Motorola’s RAZR, all of which are also expected to appear on Verizon. You might wanna check our nifty comparison of the three handsets, if you are on the fence on a new Android smartphone. Oh and the video is after the break.
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Nook Color 2 to be announced on November 7th, B&N sends out invites for a Nook event

News

October 31, 2011 at 10:11 am

With Amazon preparing to ship the Kindle Fire on November 15 and the original Nook Color celebrating its one year anniversary in mid-November, we’ve been hearing a lot of noise building up on a second generation LCD touchscreen Nook.

Barnes & Noble has just sent out invites for a Nook related event for Monday the 7th of November in New York, and we would guess that the company will reveal the ‘Nook Color 2’. Although the original Nook Color doesn’t fare badly against the Kindle Fire, we expect that B&N would want to beef up the processing power of a Nook Color successor to match or supersede that of the Fire. It will also be interesting to see where B&N will price any new devices, to match or beat Amazon’s $199 offering.

In the meantime, why don’t you enter our giveaway for an original Nook Color.

The lady speaks, Siri made to work on the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch (video)

News

October 30, 2011 at 7:56 am

Siri, Apple’s very talkative personal assistant app, which we’ve covered in detail, was announced together with the iPhone 4S. Apple has stated that Siri will only be made available on its latest handset, meaning that if you wanted to try out Siri, you would have to get the iPhone 4S. Well, when there’s a will there’s a way, and Siri found itself ported (or should we say hacked into) ‘unsupported’ iOS 5 devices like the iPad and the iPhone 4. However, so far, although the application ran, Apple’s servers would refuse to respond to any requests, so Siri remained silent.

Well, bright developers Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) and @chpwn, finally got the lady to answer back on an iPhone 4 and an iPod Touch 4G — at least from what we’ve seen in the video, which you can find after the break. According to Steve, Siri runs well on both the iPhone 4 and the iPod Touch, although the latter requires you to speak louder since its microphone was not designed to phone specs.
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Panasonic GX1 Micro Four Thirds camera spotted in the wild (pictures)

News

October 29, 2011 at 2:58 am

Ever since the introduction of the Panasonic GF2, camera fans have been clamoring for a true successor for the venerable GF1 Micro Four Thirds shooter. The Panasonic GF1 was the camera that introduced a lot of people to compact mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras (MILCs), over three years ago. Well, the GX1 has been rumored to be that successor, offering better image quality but also advanced handling options.

Well, we now have photos, and loads of them, of the GX1 which had surfaced at Taiwan’s Mobile01 forum. From the images, which you can find after the break, we can see that the GX1 looks a lot like the original GF1, though a bit smaller, with a boxy case strikingly different from the more curvy look of the GF2 and GF3 cameras. In terms of looks, we actually wish Panasonic would have done something more striking and original, but it’s the innards that really count. The GX1 is seen here with the premium X-series 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 collapsible zoom lens. Controls have been moved around but are typical Panasonic, though missing the drive mode selector. The camera has prominent stereo mics on the top and an AVHCD logo at the back pointing to some advance video capabilities.

The Panasonic GX1 is expected to be announced on Novermber 8th in Japan. The camera is rumored to have a 16-megapixel sensor and new image processing engine, going up to ISO 12,800. The non-tiltable LCD screen that you can see here, would be a 3-inch 460k dot one, though we haven’t heard if it will have touch capabilities. The camera will be capable of full HD shooting and Panasonic will also release an updated LVF2 external electronic viewfinder with 1,440k dots.

The GX1 will be going against some serious competition from the likes of Sony’s NEX-7 and the Fujifilm X100, and it was about time that Panasonic would get back into the game with a serious rangefinder-style body.
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You can watch the entire Samsung Galaxy Note and Galaxy Nexus event now here (video)

News

October 28, 2011 at 6:08 pm

You can now watch the full 52 minutes and 55 seconds of Samsung’s London event showing off their Super AMOLED HD duo, the Galaxy Note and Galaxy Nexus. The Note was the star of the show, with Samsung representatives going over every detail of the 5.3-inch tablet-phone and embellishing over the S Pen stylus. However the last fifteen minutes were devoted to the upcoming Galaxy Nexus — if you missed it, you can watch the Galaxy Nexus and Android 4.0 event here.

You can find the video after the break. We should let you know that you can get the Galaxy Note right now in Europe (U.S. availability still under speculation), while the Galaxy Nexus will roll-out first in Europe on November 17th and a U.S. release will follow shortly after.
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Is your iPhone 4S or iOS 5 updated iPhone suffering from short battery life? Apple is looking into it

News

October 28, 2011 at 5:41 pm

Although not yet up to ‘battery-gate’ status, a lot of antagonized iPhone 4S owners are complaining of very poor battery lives. You only need to take a look over at Apple’s Support Communities and you will find a host of threads with issues related to fast battery drain under standby and short battery lives. There are also some iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS owners who have upgraded to iOS 5 and are also facing similar issues, so this might not be an issue with the iPhone 4S hardware but rather an issue with the new iOS 5 operating system.
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Sony Alpha A65 in-camera JPEG vs. RAW high ISO image quality test

The Lab

October 28, 2011 at 1:45 pm

Having had the Sony Alpha A65 in our hands for a couple of days now, we are slowly getting to grips with what this 24-megapixel APS-C Exmor sensor SLT shooter is capable of. One of the first things we noticed, during our initial hands-on with the A65, was the level of noise in the images at ISO 800 and higher, but also the high level of in-camera noise reduction applied to JPEGs. I have to confess that using the Fujifilm X100 for the past few months has certainly spoiled me in terms of low-light high ISO performance and out of the camera JPEGs; but that’s another story.

A higher level of noise is expected at the camera’s full 6,000×4,000 output resolution, as is usually the case with packing more pixels in the same sensor area. A lot of this noise will become non-visible as you scale down images for print or screen uses. Starting with a higher level of noise at a higher resolution is not all that bad. However, because of this — the larger images and noise levels — we’ve found that the images from the camera benefit from some serious post processing. Note, our findings with the A65, will also apply to the A77.
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Samsung Galaxy Note now available in Europe, you can order today from Germany

News

October 27, 2011 at 6:10 pm

Hot on the heels of availability news for Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus, the 5.3-inch Galaxy Note ‘tablet-phone’ is now shipping in Europe.

Amazon.de (Germany) now has the Samsung Galaxy Note in-stock, and you can order it from anywhere in Europe for EUR 561 ($797) including VAT, of course without a contract.

The Galaxy Note runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread on a dual-core 1.4GHz Samsung Exynos processor. The 5.3-inch Super AMOLED HD screen has a 1280×800 resolution (yes it’s Pentile Matrix, of course) and the phone comes together with a Wacom designed pressure sensitive stylus, named S Pen.

We love the fact that it’s sporting a relatively large 2,500mAh battery, so you can at least enjoy the big screen without much worry of running the battery down too fast. The Galaxy Note weighs 178g (6.3 oz) and measures 9.65mm (0.38 inches) thick.

You can check out our initial coverage here, while a lovely video demonstration of the Note’s drawing capabilities can be found here.
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Samsung confirms November 17 release date for Galaxy Nexus in the UK and Europe

News

October 27, 2011 at 4:04 pm

Samsung has officially confirmed, at its Galaxy Note event in London, that the Android 4.0 bearing Galaxy Nexus will be available in the UK and the rest of Europe come Thursday November 17.

Amazon UK already has the Galaxy Nexus up for pre-order for £549 without a commitment, and as we’ve found in these cases, it’s good to get ahead in line. As far as UK carriers go the Galaxy Nexus is expected to be available on Vodafone, O2 and Three, but you might want to check directly with them for availability.

Note that in the U.S., Verizon has already has confirmed that it will carry the smartphone and has put up a registration page, where you can ask to be notified when the Galaxy Nexus becomes available. Other carriers have yet confirm availability.