Compared with the line Xperia Z and even the Xperia X and X Performance, the Xperia XA Ultra has a design feature that draws our attention when the screen is activated: the lack of bezels. In this sense, Sony is to be congratulated on the X series.
Another very interesting feature is a 16 MP sensor on the upper front of the XA Ultra, which, despite its size, hasn't increased the upper and lower bezels compared to the previous models.
The Xperia XA Ultra is not a discrete device with its 6-inch screen and holding the device in your hands is not as comfortable as having a model like the Moto X Style, for example, with its back curve. So if you have no interest in phablets, I advise not to buy the Xperia XA Ultra. Now if this is your niche, be aware that Sony actually managed to optimize the front of the unit for the screen.
Despite the Ultra name, the new phablet Sony does not have premium features. This is midrange phone with some extra features, but does not have the fingerprint reader like the Xperia X. Thus, the device comes with the same features as the Xperia Z3+ design.
The frame of the Xperia XA Ultra is made of aluminum, but the back is clear polycarbonate. The model only weighs 202 g and is 8.4 mm thick.
On the left side of the frame, we have the SIM card and Micro-SD memory card slots covered with a lid. However, this characteristic of the Xperia line smartphones ensure water resistance but in the case of Ultra XA it is purely aesthetic, since the device does not have waterproof certification.
At the top, there is a mini jack for headphones, and at the bottom we find a speaker. Incidentally, there is no worse position for the speakers for playing games or watching videos.
The Xperia XA Ultra will be available in four colors: white, black, gold and lime.
The Pro 6 comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Pasted over this is Flyme OS 5.2, Meizu’s own UI, which dispenses with the app drawer and features gesture recognition.
The home button is the only navigation button on the phone, meaning there are neither capacitive nor on-screen buttons. Place your finger on the button to use it as a return button, press it to travel to the home screen, and swipe from the bottom of the screen upwards to open the recent apps drawer.
This configuration sounds more complicated than it is: in a few minutes it is easy to get used to the gestures. Perhaps the only problem is that the recent apps drawer will sometimes open up by mistake, especially when playing games designed for vertical orientation, such as Sonic Dash.
Besides this, Flyme brings a feature called Smart Touch. When enabled in Quick Settings, a small, floating joystick-like button appears, and each movement of the button is used for a different action: press on it to go back, slide it up to return to the home screen, down to open the notification bar, etc. All of these actions are customizable.
The phone also features Force Touch, but it is only compatible with Flyme’s own applications, like Gallery, Notes, etc. By pressing firmly on these apps’ icons, a different actions menu opens up. Force Touch can also be used within each application, such as in the above image, where a firm press has been used to open up a photo from a thumbnail. Force Touch has not proven too popular among manufacturers and Android developers (the only ones that have displayed interest in this feature have been Chinese manufacturers), so it is hard to see it being very useful in the long term.
The amount of preinstalled applications is not overwhelming, and virtually all are relatively useful, but none of them are uninstallable. They have a very similar appearance to their iOS counterparts, using color palettes and designs familiar to even the most casual iOS user.
The international version of the phone comes with Google Maps and Play Store, but no other Google applications. Gmail, Drive, et al. have to be downloaded from the Play Store.
The 4,150-mAh battery is bigger than most flagship devices this year, which mostly ran 3,000 mAh. Unfortunately, under heavy use, the battery didn't make it as long as I hoped. I played 720p video and a few games and the battery lasted around eight hours. This isn't a poor performing battery but for the size it doesn't hold its water.
Under extended, light use the smartphone lasted a full day without a charge and if you need it for normal tasks, like texting, calling, photos, a few videos and games, then the Cubot Dinosaur will give you what you need. But I wouldn't let the size of the battery affect my decision; I just think of it as an average battery for 2016.
The Moto Z employs a modular accessory design that we’ve seen with the LG G5. With ‘Moto Mods’, you’ve got a choice of several different accessories that can be connected to the back of the device, allowing the Moto Z to be transformed into a multimedia projector, or a powerful portable speaker.
A grid of magnets keeps the Moto Mods connected. You can find them on the lower side of the rear panel. You’ll barely notice they’re there when you’re handling the device, except if you intentionally slide your fingers over them.
When a Moto Mod is connected to the device, you’ll feel a vibration that confirms pairing. The accessories that were available at Motorola's headquarters were:
JBL SoundBoost (speaker)
Moto Insta-Share Projector (multimedia projector)
Incipio Power Pack (extra battery of 2,220 mAh capacity)
The JBL Moto Mod adds more sound volume to the device and does an exceptional job at it. The audio output is comparable to other Bluetooth speakers of good quality currently on the market. The sound is good, clear and balanced.
There are also Moto Mods that will be available via Moto Maker when the device is released. These covers, which also connect magnetically, are made with leather, wood and ‘ballistic nylon’.
The Moto Insta-Share Projector turns the Moto Z into a projector, able to adapt to surfaces such as walls, ceilings and floors. The accessory, as well as the JBL speaker, comes with a stand that allows it to be positioned on any surface.
It projects contents from the device's screen the way a Chromecast does. However, the Moto Insta-Share Projector has a resolution of only 480 pixels. The projected image is good, and seemingly of an HD standard during my brief test.
The Moto Z also comes with a USB Type-C port for charging and data transfer.
The Honor 5C runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Huawei’s EMUI 4.1 skin. Some Chinese manufacturers interfaces can be quite confusing, offering complicated copies of iOS, for example. What we find in the Honor 5C is, however, very pleasant to use. The interface is more intuitive, the settings menu has been modified and is now less confusing.
Interesting features
This new version of EMUI is not really revolutionary. Let’s go over some tools that make it good.
In the previous version of this interface, there was already a tool like Doze that allowed applications to run (or not) in the background. If they are not activated in a list, they’ll switch off when the phone is in standby. This can be a problem with instant messengers, as you could imagine. You can find the option in Settings > Advanced Settings > Battery management > Protected Applications.
Another interesting tool, too, existed on the old version: customizing notifications based on the application. For each, you can choose to receive a notification, plus one in the status bar and one also on the lock screen. This function has a bug in Lollipop and some users had problems with notifications not being displayed correctly. I didn’t encounter this problem with the Marshmallow release. Anyway, you can find this option in Settings > Notifications & Status Bar > Notification Center.
You can also set what type of connection each application can use: only Wi-Fi, mobile data, or both. You can imagine that it’s quite convenient for managing the consumption of data. To do this, simply enter the application menu, enter 'data consumption’ and apply your preferences.
For the rest, EMUI remains true to itself. The notification bar is still divided into two; left for notifications, right for shortcuts.
Bloatware
One of the toughest characteristics to overcome as a stock Android user is EMUI’s lack of app drawer. With a bunch of preinstalled applications, it’s obviously not pleasant to find the home screen full of unwanted apps.
The manufacturer has preinstalled some in-house applications. We find a pedometer among other health applications. This runs by default and in the background. You then find social networks like Facebook and Twitter, Opera browser, the game Asphalt and some other apps. The good news is that you can uninstall most of them.
Like its competitors, the Xiaomi Mi Band 2 offers a compact and minimalist design. It consists of two parts, one being the strap and the other a small sensor of about 3-4 cm, which is housed in the strap. The strap is made of a silicon-type of material, but has a softer texture than other bands of its kind. The strap latches close quite smoothly, without risk of falling off your wrist.
Unlike some models of FitBit, the sensor slides into the bracelet more simply. So there’s no need to force it in. There are also no problems in removing it for charging with the supplied cable.
At the rear of the sensor is a heart rate monitor, as we saw in the Mi Band 1S. The two pin connectors are used to charge the Mi Band 2 via a USB port.
On the wrist, the Mi Band 2 is a discreet and comfortable device to carry. It’s less bulky than some of its competitors and I personally find it more elegant than the FitBit Flex, which costs about the same.
The Mi Band 2 is also waterproof up to one meter and dust resistant, thanks to its IP67 certification. However, it’s not suitable for swimming sessions.
The Sony Xperia XA looks and feels very good, despite lacking the metal unibody of the Xperia X – it instead has a plastic enclosure. Unfortunately, Sony has omitted the splash protection that the Xperia XA’s predecessors, the Xperia M4 Aqua and Xperia M5, featured.
The Sony Xperia XA is beguiling to the touch. It feels pleasantly matt and smooth and has an edgeless and gapless design. The volume rocker sits slightly higher than on many other Xperia models, making it easier to reach.
A discrete flap on the side of the phone can be removed with your fingernail, granting you access to the Nano-SIM or microSD card slot without the need for a special tool. However, the flap is not sealed against liquids and dust.
The Sony Xperia XA weighs 137 grams and is 7.9-millimeters thick. The most visible design differences to the Xperia X and X Performance models is the XA’s lack of fingerprint scanner and, as mentioned previously, its choice of casing material.
It’s impossible to say how well the plastic casing copes in the long term, as we only tested the device for a week.
Sony does offer a selection of protective cases for the Xperia XA. Firstly, there is the flip cover, which comes in the four possible body colors. When you flip the cover open, the display is automatically activated; close it and the display switches off.
Next up is the StyleCover SBC26, which is also available in the four housing colors. It is placed over the rear panel and device edges, protruding slightly above the edge of the display. Then there is the Smart Style Cover SBC24, which is thin, transparent and practically invisible.
The metal edges on the left and right side of the Xperia XA are cool to the touch.
The Gear 360 snaps pictures with two lenses at a resolution of approximately 15 MP, with the originals having a strong fish-eye lens look. When running the camera with a cell phone, images are converted to an equirectangular format. These images have a resolution of 7,200 x 3,600 pixels.
The picture quality is very good, but there are some areas of the image that do not come off quite as good. This applies, for example, to a picture in which deciduous trees can be seen about 50m away: Their leaves are pretty washed out. Given the extremely small focal length of the lens, this is probably just the technical limit of the hardware.
Photos are only half the battle as the Gear 360 can also record videos. Here, the maximum resolution is 3,840 x 1,920 pixels, with the camera shooting 30 frames per second (fps). Whoever wants to take fast action video can set the mode at 60 fps, with resolution dropping to 2,560 x 1,280 pixels.
The image quality of videos is fine, but the fine detail is not so high. Fast movements of a ball, for example, aren’t so clearly visible with a typical 30 fps recording. The 60 fps mode is better but lower resolution leads to a poorer image.
There are hardly are errors during stitching of panoramic shots. However, the closer to the camera an object is, the more errors can be seen. At a distance of a few meters, hardly any stitching errors can be discerned.
Viewing 360-degree images
Special software needs to be used to view 360-degree images; either with the Gear 360 Manager, but also Facebook, Google Photos and even normal web pages with a Javascript plugin. Without VR goggles you can use a smartphone display to select segments.
If you want to view images only with Gear VR glasses you might run into problems. That’s simply because it’s not so ergonomic to display this kind of content the Gear VR. The Gear 360 Manager sometimes inexplicably stops displaying the Gear VR button, without which you can’t really make use of Samsung's VR headset.
The Oculus app starts automatically when the phone is inserted into the VR goggles. Now things get a bit crazy: Oculus Photo and Video apps can’t do anything with Gear 360 shots. The photo app does not even display self-made content that the video app could also play. But there’s really a different problem: it detects 360-degree video only if stated with the filename _360 - which the Gear 360 Manager does automatically.
So you have to change the filename manually. Feasible, but cumbersome and not very intuitive. But even then, the video app content doesn’t play, but rather shows only a still picture. Whether a _playback in filenames remedy would have worked here, I wasn’t able to try myself.
Alternatively, in the Oculus Store, there is at least a VR Gallery app from Samsung. This is not exactly convenient, but at least displays images and videos.
Even worse is if you would like to share images with others Gear VR owners. Facebook is the only convenient alternative if you do not want to transfer files via cloud storage. The route via Facebook has the decisive disadvantage that the images are re-compressed - meaning quality suffers significantly. In addition, you have to (more or less) publish the images.
Why not Google photos or YouTube then? Google Photos is actually the best way because you can simply use a link to access to the original images. But other Gear VR owners can not easily see the photo albums because the Photos app is only Cardboard supported. On YouTube, the same problem exists. This service only lets you (currently) use the Samsung Gear VR with a browser.
Atmosphere vs. image quality: 360-degree images and the Gear VR
Now, the Gear VR worked a treat as my photos were stored on my Galaxy S7. Regarding the VR glasses, images were impressive because the view is roughly life-size. The Gear 360 captures, in combination with VR glasses, the atmosphere of a place wonderfully. Also, video recordings are impressive, although not quite as detailed as photos. However, there are two things that are not ideal:
The actual resolution of the captured images is quite high, but the Gear VR has only the Galaxy S7 as a display medium and its pixel density is not sufficient to display a highly detailed panorama.
The focus of a 360-degree recording is not infinite. So there is a problem that only a specific image area is in focus - outside this range, depth of field suffers visibly.
A better VR platform could potentially deliver a better result in terms of image quality because the recordings of the Gear 360 have elements that simply don’t compute with the Gear VR combined with a Galaxy S7.
In our Google Photos album, you can check out some of the 360-degree photos we made:
The first Gear Fit appeared in 2014 and was presented together with the Samsung Galaxy S5. With the first generation of the Gear Fit, Samsung created a great device for the time: a fitness tracker with a heart rate monitor and pedometer which could also receive app notifications. However, these features were not the real highlight of the Gear Fit: its curved 1.84-inch AMOLED display, which displayed all important health data and notifications, was the real showstopper.
The original Gear Fit was also cause for some head shaking, however, as Samsung had designed it so that the screen’s contents were only oriented in landscape mode, rendering it largely useless in everyday life. A later software update changed this, putting an end to the need for awkward head movements to read the display.
With the new Gear Fit2, Samsung updates the hardware and software and integrates 4 GB of internal memory, to allow the fitness tracker to function as a portable MP3 player, meaning you can leave your smartphone at home.
The Gear Fit2 is available for purchase now for $179.99. It comes in three colors – black, red or blue – and in two different strap sizes (S or L).
The first surprise of the device is its size; this was expected. It has a length of 173 mm and a width of 88 mm, which is much bigger than the palm of my hand. Luckily, the device is thin, only 7.5 mm, but the width and weight of 230 g makes it difficult to use it with just one hand (although there is supposedly a software solution, but we shall see).
With two hands, using the device is no problem. The feel is smooth but a little slippery, which gives me an insecure feeling when I hold the device with just one hand. But, overall, it has a premium feel. The device didn't fit in any of the pockets of my pants. And it stuck out in my shorts too. Depending on where you keep it, sitting and crouching is a bit uncomfortable.
Aside from the cumbersome shape, the Xiaomi Mi Max is a very elegant device. The aluminum rear leaves space on the upper and lower sides for two plastic areas, which of course retains the same color. On this side, we have the fingerprint sensor in the upper corner and the main camera with a dual-tone flash.
The power button is on the right side of the frame, which is the little square with a bevel at the corners. Below the screen, sits the capacitive buttons.
Telegram is the best WhatsApp alternative on the market. The advantages start with its price: Telegram is a free messenger. Also, the developer is not interested in making a profit. On the app’s FAQ page it says: "making profit will never be a goal for Telegram". Because of this, there is no advertising to be seen.
Unlike WhatsApp, Telegram can be used simultaneously on different devices. For PCs, there are native applications and the web client. For tablets and smartphones, there are native apps for iOS, Apple and Windows Mobile.
To give an overview, Telegram is more helpful than many professional tools and more fun than WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. The userbase is also very large, meaning you should be able to continue your conversations from WhatsApp or Messenger relatively easily. You can also:
Make groups with up to 5,000 people
Send as many photos, videos and other files as you want
Broadcast to up to 100 contacts at once
Start secret chats with end-to-end encryption and automatic self-destruction
The secret chats are the most important feature of Telegram. The end-to-end encrypted conversations, together with any media you transfer, are decipherable only to the devices of the chat’s participants; no one in-between can read or view anything.
The secret chats also, unfortunately, have a number of disadvantages. The chat can be viewed only on the two devices it began on; technical reasons prevent you from picking up a chat on your PC that you started on your smartphone. With traditional chats, it is possible to continue them on any other device, because they are synchronized with a server.
The other weakness is that the secret chat logs and all transferred images remain trapped in the devices and cannot be transferred. There are no backups. Secretly transmitted images have to be saved individually to your gallery if they are to be backed up at all.
Only the server-client encrypted, so non-secret, chats are completely stored on the servers. So if you change your phone one day, only the secret chats will disappear, while all the rest will be completely restored.
Stickers and bots
Similar to Facebook Messenger, Telegram also features some playful elements. Stickers provide a little entertainment through expressive pictures. As is often the case, these are an open platform, so anyone can compile their own sticker packs to use. Stickers are discovered through interacting with the bots.
While Google, IBM, Amazon and Facebook are talking a lot about bots and automated service chats, Telegram has used bots for a while for a slightly different purpose. The screenshots above show how you can use emoji sets in conversations behind the @sticker tag to find stickers. @sticker is the signal that Telegram uses to feed a bot with emoji. The bot will return a list of stickers that creators have tagged with that emoji.
If you like a sticker, you can save it and its related stickers as a sticker package, making it more readily accessible. In this way, Telegram can, little-by-little, be adapted to your taste. And that's a pretty clever form of creating customer loyalty.
The annoying phone number constraint
The biggest disadvantage is the necessity of using a phone number. Unlike in Threema, it is mandatory to use a phone number to register with Telegram. And any change of telephone number must be carried out within the app, through an assistant, as in WhatsApp.
The advantage of this system is that you can synchronize your Telegram contacts with your phone's contacts very quickly and see who else you know is also using Telegram. One positive is that your phone number is treated as confidential by Telegram. If you’re ever involved in a group chat with unknown participants for whatever reason, they will not be able to see your phone number. The specifics about the visibility of your phone number are stated in the FAQ section of Telegram.
