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:

Leica could be preparing a black-and-white only sensor digital camera (rumor)

News

March 16, 2012 at 9:48 am

This is a pretty wild rumor, but extremely interesting nonetheless. Leicarumors is reporting that the German camera maker could also be unveiling a digital camera with a black and white only sensor at its upcoming event in Berlin.

Obviously this would be a niche product, but would offer some obvious advantages to Leica’s discerning fan base. Almost all digital camera sensors feature a color filter array in order to be able to record a color image. A typical array features red, green and blue filters that essentially cut out other wavelengths to allow incoming light of that particular color only. The intensity of each color is then recorded and used to recreate the color image. Because of the color filter array, sensors are essentially throwing away a large amount of light that would otherwise hit the sensor. You can see how the most common type of filter, the Bayer color filter, works below.
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Watch 10,000 volts of electricity blast through the HTC One S aluminium case (video)

News

March 16, 2012 at 6:32 am

HTC is mighty proud of its new One series of smartphones and it has been ‘subtly’ pointing out their benefits. We’ve already seen images taken from the new ImageSense camera module found in the 4.7-inch quad-core HTC One X and the 4.3-inch dual-core HTC One S, but what can demonstrate anything better than watching a piece of aluminium getting hit by 10,000 volts of electricity?

The HTC One S case is made of one piece of aluminium metal that first undergoes a brutal treatment, called micro-arc oxidation, giving it an extremely durable finish. The case is made of aircraft-grade aluminium and the process involves 10,000 volts hitting the metal like lightning. This treatment creates a metal oxide coating that is typically thicker than by other methods, like anodizing, and results in a ceramic-like finish.
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Nexus S to get Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update soon, for real this time

News

March 16, 2012 at 5:29 am

One of the allures of getting one of Google’s developer-friendly Nexus Android devices is that you have bigger chances in getting timely official updates when new major Android versions hit. Well, the Nexus S and Nexus S 4G started receiving the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) update only a month after Google released the latest and greatest version of Android, however the update was soon pulled with Google citing battery and Wi-Fi issues related to the update.
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No, Apple didn’t make a battery tech breakthrough in the iPad 3; it just stuck more of it inside

News

March 16, 2012 at 4:03 am

Some of the initial coverage on the new 3rd generation iPad suggested that Apple somehow increased the power density of the Lithium-ion battery cells inside the new iPad in order to achieve the jump from 25Whr, in the iPad 2, to 43Whr — that’s more than a 70% increase in battery capacity. The reasoning behind this was that while there was this huge increase in battery capacity the new iPad is only very slightly thicker (just 0.6mm) and heavier than the iPad 2.

Now, the iPad 2 was practically all battery already, so somehow it made sense that Apple had magically created a new battery technology without anyone catching wind on it.

That would be some awesome news for the entire consumer electronics industry and you know how much we deplore mobile devices that don’t offer full-day battery life and how we are always on the lookout on ways to keep us powered on the go. However, if you knew anything about the evolution of battery technology you’d know how slowly and incrementally power density has improved.
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Diablo III coming on May 15th

News

March 16, 2012 at 2:28 am

Some might think that waiting more than ten years for a computer game is way too long, others will say that it’s worth it. Diablo III suffered numerous delays since it was initially announced in 2008 by Blizzard, each time bringing disappointment to the hearts of dungeon-loving hack and slash fans.
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The new iPad goes under the scalpel, teardown reveals Samsung retina LCD

News

March 15, 2012 at 1:26 pm

The guys at iFixit are really committed to what they do, and what they do is dissect all your favorite gadgets piece by piece and document every step of the way. Well, the 3rd generation iPad may not be out yet but the iFixit crew managed to grab one from a store in Australia and promptly brought it in for surgery.

First task was to separate the new stunning retina display from the rest of the iPad’s body and here we get the first revelation. The screen is probably made by Samsung rather than LG as it was initially rumored.
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Leica M10 and X1 successor to be announced on May 10th?

News

March 15, 2012 at 5:44 am

Leica has been sending invites to an event in Berlin on May 10-11th. The invitation reads: We invite you to exclusively experience a whole range of product launches in a culturally and photographically unique atmosphere.

Now Leica had indicated in the past that it would be updating its M and X camera lines every three years, and both the M9 full-frame digital Rangefinder and the X1 APS-C cameras are due for an update this year, having been released in 2009.
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Apple could be releasing a 15-inch MacBook Air in April (rumor)

News

March 14, 2012 at 3:14 pm

We think it’s inevitable that eventually all of Apple’s excellent MacBook like will go Air-like thin, it’s just a matter of when. Now there has been a lot of chatter lately that Apple may soon be introducing 15 and 17-inch MacBook Airs, that could eventually kill off the MacBook Pro as we know it. The rumors are not too far-fetched, the MacBook Air already took care of the 13-inch white MacBook.
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Encyclopaedia Britannica going fully digital, trees sigh in relief

News

March 14, 2012 at 9:46 am

The print version of Encyclopaedia Britannica has kept humanity company for 244 years. The wealth of knowledge that makes up the 32-volume printed edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica has adorned library shelves since 1768 and, as sign of our times, the company that publishes it has decided to abandon it and go fully digital.

Upon the onset of the digital age and the internet, Britannica’s sales started falling and the company managed to sell only 8,000 sets of the 2010 edition from the 12,000 set initial run. Now considering the wealth of information available for free on the internet and the speed with which new knowledge and information is created, you see why a printed encyclopedia no longer makes sense. Also typing a search query and hitting enter, beats the hell out of having to pull down a heavy volume and flick through hundreds of pages to find an answer.
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Sony A57 translucent mirror digital camera announced: 16-megapixel sensor, 12fps for $699.99 (video)

News

March 14, 2012 at 7:01 am

With the entry-level Sony A55 gone the way of the dodo, the company had to fill the gap in its DSLT (digital single lens translucent) camera line-up. The just announced A57 is the official successor to the A55, which was initially released in 2010 and was the first camera to feature Sony’s translucent mirror technology.

Sony’s SLT cameras have a DSLR-style body and a mirror, but unlike DSLRs, the mirror doesn’t move. The translucent mirror allows most light to hit the sensor while some of it is reflected to a phase detection autofocus sensor. Because of this setup, DSLT cameras feature electronic viewfinders (EVFs) rather than optical ones.
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Sony 3.7-inch Xperia Sola smartphone does touch navigation from afar (video)

News

March 13, 2012 at 4:50 pm

Sony has just unveiled a new smartphone in its Xperia NXT series. The Xperia Sola is a 3.7-inch Android smartphone coming in between the 3.5-inch Xperia U and the 4-inch Xperia P. The Sola shares a lot of the design cues that we’ve come to love in recent Xperia smartphones, though it’s missing the transparent acrylic strip at the bottom that we first saw in the high-end 4.3-inch Xperia S.

Nevertheless, the Xperia Sola has something unique. It’s the first smartphone to feature “floating touch” navigation technology. That is the device can sense a finger above the display and allows users to move an on-screen cursor by hovering a finger above the screen, you then tap the screen to navigate.
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Apple’s new iPad (a.k.a. iPad 3) packing 1GB of RAM and 1GHz processor, gets early unboxing and benchmark

News

March 13, 2012 at 1:40 pm

Although Apple is keeping the new 3rd generation iPad (a.k.a. iPad 3) under lock and key until the official March 16 release date, a pair of Vietnamese tech journalists managed to snatch an early copy.

As normally happens in these cases, the pair has duly unboxed the new iPad, which is a 16GB 4G model by the way, in front of a camera and also ran a quick benchmark. No surprises with the unboxing, the new iPad comes in pretty much the same box as the iPad 2, and you still get a power adapter and a USB to 30 pin connector cable. But anyone anxious for some early retina display action is welcome to the 4 minute video just below, and we’re sure you won’t mind that it’s in Vietnamese.
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HTC shows off its ImageSense smartphone camera technology (pictures)

News

March 11, 2012 at 5:50 pm

With all the attention Nokia’s 41-megapixel PureView camera (found in the 808 smartphone) has been getting, HTC is feeling kinda left out. The Taiwanese company wants you to know that it’s done its homework on smartphone cameras and the result of its efforts is the new ImageSense imaging technology that can be found in the HTC One smartphone series.

ImageSense comes in two parts, the camera and a companion chip. The HTC ImageSense camera is made up of a pretty standard 8-megapixel 1/1.2-inch sensor but has a new fast f/2.0 28mm lens. The new lens will allow more light into the sensor, improving low-light performance and allowing for shallower depth of field. The module’s own image processing chip takes over all picture taking duties from the regular processor and allows for 0.7-second shoot times and 0.2-second autofocus.
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Nokia 808 PureView 41-megapixel sensor drew its inspiration from the skies

News

March 10, 2012 at 7:25 pm

We live for the moments when companies think out of the box, and Nokia has been doing a lot of that lately. The latest innovation from the company is the 41-megapixel camera sensor in the newly announced Nokia 808 PureView. Yeah that would be an insane number of pixels even for a full-frame DSLR and that’s actually stuffed in a smartphone.

The camera phone turned heads at this year’s MWC 2012, and although the Symbian Belle-powered 808 will not be released in the States, Nokia’s PureView technology will soon find its way into the company’s Windows Phone devices.
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