Saturday 31 December 2011
Friday 30 December 2011
Thursday 29 December 2011
Wednesday 28 December 2011
Prometheus - Official Trailer [TRUE HD]
A team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human
race.
The Devil Inside - Official Trailer [HD] horror movie in theaters 6 jan, 2011
THE BUZZ: Sorry, but I fear the whole microbudget horror craze is going to bring down the genre's mainstream appeal. The latest case is this exorcism-themed project (yes, another) from the guys who turned Stay Alive into an indie hit for Disney's dark side back in 2006. Paramount has set up this project at their specialty/cheapie label, Insurge, so expect it to mimic your standard Paranormal Activity promotional campaign.
iPHONE 4S 'Same shape-different brain' REVIEW
Updated: Our camera team has spent some professional time with the iPhone 4S, so check out our in-depth findings of the snapper.
The iPhone 4S caught many by surprise, with Apple expected to release the iPhone 5 - but instead we got an iPhone 4 with overhauled innards.
While the masses were initially disappointed, the iPhone 4S features a glut of top-end tech that is designed to put it on a par with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S2 - but does it manage to do that?
The changes to the iPhone 4S are easy to document - the camera has been upgraded to 8MP (with an improved aperture ratio), the CPU is now the same dual-core A5 processor as seen in the iPad 2, and a seven time increase in graphical processing power.
The iPhone 4S is the flagship model fAlso we've got Siri, Apple's voice recognition service - will this be a game changer for mobile phones or will it be nothing more than a gimmick?
As you can see, Apple has altered its antenna band technology to move the gaps that plagued the iPhone 4's reception to a less-touchable locationor the new iOS software from Apple, making it much snazzier once more.
As we've mentioned, the iPhone 4S is almost identical in outward design to the iPhone 4, which might irk those that like to show that they've got the most up to date device from Apple when out and about with friends.
However, the flip side of this is that things like the plethora of iPhone 4 covers on the market at the moment will still fit.
Apple has slightly changed the design of the iPhone 4S somewhat though, by changing to a dual-band aerial design, making sure it doesn't encounter an embarrassing repeat of antenna-gate we had to endure with the iPhone 4.
For all those that haven't seen the older version of the phone, we'll take you on a tour of the new handset: the top of the iPhone 4S houses the power/lock button, as well as the headphone jack, plus a microphone for noise cancellation.
The right-hand side of the phone is devoid of any buttons, but holds the slot for the micro SIM card, which pops out using the included tool (or a paperclip).
The bottom of the phone is pretty standard, with the Apple connector and dual speakers which pump out the (actually quite decent) sound.
The left-hand side of the phone sees the rounded volume keys, with the top one of these also acting as the camera shutter button to make it easy to snap with the new iPhone. We've also got the silencer switch too, which has been slightly moved upwards from the previous iteration.
We'll walk you through the big changes to start with - and Notifications is up there with the best of them.
The new system apes Android by using a drop down menu from pretty much anywhere in the phone to let you see all manner of updates, weather news and messages, plus new notifications will now ping across the top of the screen rather than plopping straight into the middle of the screen like before and disrupting whatever you were doing.
It's not revolutionary by any means, but it's well-integrated and makes the whole system feel a whole lot different to iOS 4.
The lock screen is now called into more use than ever before too, with new notifications sitting on top to be easily accessed without needing to mess about inside the phone.
We quickly got to grips with this new system and can see a lot of people really enjoying being able to open the camera quickly too, which you can do by simply double tapping the home button on the lock screen.
The original system we're fans of is also back in full force, with swipable home screens filled with icons for apps, which you can easily sort into folders or edit by long pressing on the screen.
Double tapping the home button will let you see all your open applications, making it easy to multitask on the go, and swiping to the left gets you to the iPod menu to quickly access the controls. It's the closest we get to widgets with this phone, and we're still hankering after more... but that's the choice Apple is making in the face of the widget-laden Android opposition.
We would like to see contextual menus throughout the interface, for instance being able to change the settings for an app without having to jump out of the main menu - we're sure this has to be coming soon in a future release.
As we've mentioned before, the iPhone 4S now comes with the dual-core A5 processor, which means battery life is meant to be better and the rest of the phone should operate even more snappily.
In our tests, we barely noticed that much of a difference in speed with the iPhone 4, as there was never really a problem with opening and closing applications. With the animations still present, it still seems like the iPhone 4S is a little slower than other dual core handsets on the market (although we mean a tiny amount) but in general use it works perfectly.
It's the most intuitive system on the market in our eyes - we're fans of the complexity of Android, but not everybody is a power user and for the person that wants a simple smartphone that's easy to pick up and start using, the iPhone 4S is one of the best.
The iPhone 4S has the same range of calling options as before, and the contacts menu has barely changed in the latest version of iOS, but it's an easy system and one that people will pick up with little fuss.
Contacts
The contacts system is one that makes simple sense: you hit the phone section, and are presented with many options, be it calling one of your favourite contacts list, seeing your missed or dialled calls, accessing the dial pad or just seeing the phone book in its entirety.
It's as easy as you could imagine to add in a contact on the iPhone 4S, with a phone number entry presenting an option to save the number to a new or existing contact without a problem.
However, and this is a gripe we've had about the iPhone contacts' system for years - it's pretty basic and doesn't really add in a lot of functionality.
You can add in some basic information, like a photo, address or instant messaging handle, but it pales in comparison to the super linked-up options present on the likes of the Android range.
There's no social networking integration, or message history present in the phonebook, which would surely be a pretty cool thing for Apple to add in.
Calling
You may have noticed that the iPhone 4 had a few... issues with its antenna. It was blown way out of proportion by many, as it was a slight attenuation issue present in a few handsets, but Apple is keen to make sure no such attack can be levied at it again.
We've already covered the new antenna system, and we're happy to tell you that it works just fine - no problem with signal quality no matter how you hold the phone.
Call quality itself was top drawer throughout our test, with absolutely no drops no matter where we were. We've used other phones on O2 regularly around London, and the iPhone 4S showed itself to have more bars of signal in areas that have been notoriously dodgy before.
We did notice a number of times where the 3G signal would drop to Edge and take a little while to jump back to the fully fledged signal level. It would also be nice if we could see when the iPhone 4S is running on the super-speedy HSDPA 14.4Mbps connection speeds, but it seems Apple only thinks the masses needs to know when things are 3G or not.
One thing we would have liked to see is smart dialling included, i.e. being able to type in a number and see the right name come up - surely that's something Apple is looking to include in the future?
Messaging on the iPhone 4S has been given something of a boost by the inclusion of the iMessage, which is a BBM-a-like service for iOS devices. It can be used on any device running iOS 5, which means conversations can be easily carried across on loads of Apple products without an issue.
While many will expect iMessage to be a separate app in the same manner as BBM, it simply jumps in when a relevant phone is on the other end of the conversation, meaning essentially free text messaging and cool features like read receipts and being able to see when the other person is typing.
However, this will be more useful for iPhone 3GS and 4 models, as it's surely only good to replace text messaging for those that need to save money and haven't got a price plan that offers thousands of messages for free each month.
iPhones have always been looked at as decent messaging devices, and that's certainly true when it comes to email. There's a unified inbox for all your accounts, with multiple email addresses supported on the phone.
Setting these up is as simple as you'd imagine, with only an address and password needed in most situations. As we mentioned earlier, it's so easy to keep track of your emails thanks to the new notifications system, but it's hardly anything new, so not really a unique selling point.
The keyboard is another great selling point from Apple for its iPhone - some people have complained that it's a bit hit and miss in the past, but most people should have become trained in the art of tapping out a message on a touchscreen, so most will quickly be up to speed with the well-known keyboard.
There's a new addition to the keyboard, and that's an option to speak out the message reply using Siri. It's almost unerring in its accuracy compared to other voice recognition systems, although you do need to say things like 'comma' or 'exclamation mark' to add in the punctuation.
We sent 100 messages using Siri to see the accuracy, and found that the accuracy was around 45%, although shorter messages were obviously better.
However, we were relieved to be able to head back to tapping out our messages on the keyboard, as you could make sure what you wrote was correct first go. If you're going to speak your messages, why not just call the person?
One of the greatest things about the original iPhone was the Safari internet browser, and that's still the case with the fifth iteration of the phone.
The iPhone 4S has the new and iOS 5-upgraded browser, and it comes with some nifty new features we'll get to in a moment.
The main feature of the iPhone 4S browser is the fact it's simply so fast, and able to handle pretty much any web page in seconds over Wi-Fi or 3G.
We tested the loading time for the TechRadar website compared to the iPhone 4, and found that it was around 3 seconds quicker for the newer device over both Wi-Fi and 3G connections. When loading mobile-formatted sites, it was like there was no delay at all in some cases, with most loading up in under a second.
There's something that the Android browser has always had over the iPhone version in our mind, and that's the ability to resize the text to fit the screen should you want to get closer. That's still the situation now, with only two zoom levels on offer from the iPhone 4S should you want to read an article in a larger font.
However, Apple has done something new here and introduced Reader to the Safari browser. This means once the page has loaded you can hit the Reader tab in the URL bar to see a stark, e-reader-like version of the page, stripping out ads and unnecessary pictures to mean you can quickly and easily read the longer articles you want to.
If you've ever used Instapaper, you'll know what the experience is like... you've got to feel sorry for that service now Apple has developed its own version.
Another way to read the articles you want to is the Reading List function, which is simply a temporary bookmarks list - you can sort them by 'All' or 'Unread' so you know which sites you want to check back with. It's a nice idea, and one that we found ourselves using more than we expected to, keeping a number of articles on the backburner when we didn't have time to scan through.
However, surely it would have made sense to format these automatically using the Reader, or at least have an option to? We found ourselves getting irritated with having to wait for them to reload every time to just reformat them... so maybe this is something Apple can change in the future.
Oh, and let's not forget our favourite refrain for an Apple iPhone review - the lack of Flash video. We've no idea how Apple has managed to survive all of these years without adding in some kind of Flash support, but those little error boxes strewn all over the internet still grate a fair bit.
Sure, they are abating as more sites become more mobile friendly, and HTML5 video support is built into the iOS browser, but that's still a long way from being an oft-used video format for the web, so iPhone 4S users will have to put up with a substandard internet performance compared to their Android counterparts when it comes to web video.
We've teamed up with Future's camera team to bring you our new, in-depth test for the iPhone 4S camera - see our professional findings below:
With 8MP at its disposal, the iPhone 4S produces images that are roughly 3MP larger than its predecessor.
But Apple hasn't just squeezed a few more pixels onto the sensor; it's used a new sensor design that has larger capacity pixels. This means that each pixel receives more light and generates a stronger signal, so images have less visual noise to produce a more attractive and well-defined snap.
Apple has also used a new lens with an aperture of f/2.4. In photographic circles this is quite a big deal, as it lets in more light to allow faster shutter speeds in darker situations and thus helps keep motion blur at bay.
A wide aperture is also useful because it means the depth of field, or sharp zone, can be restricted to isolate the subject from its background. This is only really likely to come into play when shooting objects close-up with the iPhone 4S.
As with all cameraphones, because of it's small sensor size the iPhone 4S will have lots of depth of field in most other shooting situations. This is ideal for holiday shots and the like when you want to photograph someone in front of a jaw-dropping scene or a famous landmark and you want both to be sharp.
Controls
The iPhone 4S doesn't offer much in the way of camera controls. The sensitivity settings, white balance and exposure, for example, are all set automatically with no way of adjusting them prior to taking a shot. There's not even an exposure compensation facility to tweak the exposure.
A camera manufacturer wouldn't be able to sell a compact camera with such a limited level of control unless it was for a child.
However, it does make the iPhone 4S camera very easy to use and, of course, extra functionality can be added via apps.
One useful option that is available is the ability to manually select whether the flash fires or not. Those who prefer to handover complete control can leave this set to 'Auto' - and generally we found it fired at the correct points, often appearing to improve shots we considered already well-lit.
The flash is weak, but it's useful for illuminating very dark scenes or adding a little sparkle to eyes in daylight. It's a very small light source, so if it is the main one for an image, expect strong shadows and highlights – it's not the most flattering option for a night-time portrait, but very strong for a single LED.
A tap of the screen is all that is required to set the focus point. The camera then usually does a quick backwards and forwards focus adjustment before the subject is made sharp. There's no clear focus indicator, the subject just looks sharp when the focussing has completed.
Although the touchscreen is core to the iPhone, Apple hasn't given the camera a touch-shutter facility.
This would trigger than camera to focus and take the shot with a single touch of the screen. Instead, after choosing the focus point, the shutter icon needs to be hit to take the shot.
The 'up' volume control can now also be used as the camera shutter button too - however, it was very stiff indeed on our test sample, meaning there was an element of shakiness about some of the photos that simply pressing the screen could accomplish.
However, it's still a nice touch to have - taking pictures of yourself is much easier with this as an option.
Although there is no optical zoom facility, the iPhone 4s camera allows users to zoom digitally into the scene using the pinch to zoom option on the touchscreen. Plus you could always look SUPER COOL and get one of those optical attachments for the iPhone 4S to make it into a longer range shooting device - but you'd have to be really dedicated to do that.
Rather than reducing the size of the images, however, the iPhone interpolates the digitally-zoomed shots so they have the same 3264x2448 pixel dimensions.
On-screen icons provide access to the secondary camera and the grid display, flash and HDR options. These icons can be difficult to see when you're shooting from an awkward angle and it's easy to touch one accidentally when you are trying to set the focus point.
It's helpful that, if the camera is active when the iPhone 4S is put into sleep mode, the camera is available as soon as the lock screen is swiped open.
You can also jump straight into the camera from the lock screen with a double tap of the Home Button, although you can only see the snaps you've taken from that session, meaning you can't sneak into the photo gallery of a code-locked iPhone.
Exposure
As with any camera the point of focus needs to be selected with care, but for the iPhone it is particularly important as the brightness of the main subject has an impact on the overall exposure of the image.
If the subject is very dark, for instance, the image is often made quite bright and vice versa. It is often worth playing around with different focus points to get the best exposure as you can't do anything to change it manually as we mentioned earlier.
If a face is in the scene, the camera recognises it quickly and focuses ready for the shot to be taken - and it's one of the best examples of such integration on a phone, focusing almost instantly when a face is present.
With scenes that have lots of contrast the HDR facility, which we first saw on the iPhone 4, comes in handy. In this mode the camera creates three different versions after an image is captured and then merges them down into one with greater dynamic range, that is, more detail in the highlights and the shadows.
We found that the HDR modes produces subtly enhanced images, with the greatest emphasis seeming to be on brightening shadows.
Colour saturation is sometimes overly-boosted by using the HDR mode, but generally the results look very natural and subjects aren't surrounded by obvious halos (unwanted bright areas around the object).
Image quality
When we test cameras the first thing we do is shoot our resolution chart to see how much detail it can record. We'd normally do this at every sensitivity setting, but as the iPhone 4S doesn't allow the ISO setting to be set manually, we just had to plump for what it chose automatically in the bright lights of our lab.
The image EXIF data shows that the iPhone selected ISO 80, which is a low setting that should ensure plenty of detail is captured.
We found that the iPhone 4S is capable of recording around 1,400 line widths per picture height (LH/PH).
This doesn't compare well with the average camera, or even another phone like the Nokia N8, which managed to notch up 2,200 LW/PH.
However, the resolution score isn't the whole story. At 100% on the computer screen the images look natural and not overtly digital.
They look a little soft, and have a faint granular texture, but they aren't over-sharpened so there are no harsh edges or halos.
At more sensible viewing sizes most of the iPhone 4S images look great: sharp and sufficiently detailed. Out of focus areas look naturally soft and there's none of the watercolour effect or bold outlines that we have seen from some other cameraphones.
Colours are generally good, but there is some variation. The white balance can shift from one shot to the next, possibly because of slight changes in the colour of the subject under the focus point, which the iPhone will select for you unless told otherwise.
Some colours look a bit subdued on the screen at the point of capture, but they are recorded well and show up much more vividly on a computer screen.
Standard cat: Taken with the iPhone 4S, the low light sensors do a good job raising the brightness, but lose a little detail.
Garden shot: Taken with the iPhone 4S, this shows a decent colour balance with a quick snap
Here we can see the same photo from the iPhone 4S with HDR on, and the balance is much better compared to the original and the S2
Billiard-tastic: This well-lit shot captures colours well even without HDR turned on
AE/AF lock: You can long press on a certain part of the picture to lock the exposure and focus settings - here we concentrated on the foreground
HDR overhaul: But the same picture with HDR enabled is dramatically enhanced, with detail throughout the shot excellent
HDR warning: Be careful about using the option all the time, as strong light and motion can result in ghosting
Front facing: The front camera is more than good enough for quick self portraits
Up close and personal: The macro mode is automatically enabled and quickly manages to take close-up pictures (HDR on)
The same leaf from further away - you can see the level of detail the iPhone 4S captures is very impressive
Verdict
It's interesting to note that the EXIF data shows that the camera sometimes switches been a general purpose multi-zone metering system and spot metering even when the same scene is being shot, introducing some variation in the colour and exposure of images taken in a sequence.
This probably won't bother most casual cameraphone users, but should explain how you can take multiple images of the same scene and get different effects.
It may not be the most feature-rich camera, but the iPhone 4S is very easy to use and is highly responsive, with one of the best (ie shortest) shutter lags in the industry. While other cameraphones are capable of capturing more detail, we like the naturalness of the iPhone's images.
It's worth noting that image colour can vary a little bit and it's an idea to take a couple of shots if you don't get exactly what you were expecting first time.
It's a shame there's no touch-shutter option though.
We'll be honest - there are other cameras out there that are worthy of a mention - the Samsung Galaxy S2, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc and the HTC Evo 3D are all pretty darn good.
But to our eyes, the iPhone 4S trumps all of these by producing the best quality shots on most occasions. And if you turn off the HDR shooting mode to just get 'normal' quality snaps, the speed at which you can move from taking one photo to the next is simply mind blowing - although already bettered by the 'zero lag' option of the Galaxy Nexus
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