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  • Apple iPhone X

    Apple iPhone X

    It’s been quite a while since we last saw an iPhone concept, so this one is welcome! Bob Freking imagined a 4.8 inch Retina Display Apple smarpthone.

  • Sony Ericsson W9

    Sony Ericsson W9

    Well, it has just turned into a full-fledged smartphone, a Sony Ericsson Walkman phone with very impressive specifications..

  • Nokia Nexus G

    Nokia Nexus G

    brand new Nokia concept phone, with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean on board. The device is called Nokia Nexus G and it apparently also supports “Android 4.3″.

  • Apple iPhone 5S Mockup

    Apple iPhone 5S Mockup

    the one of the Apple iPhone 5S. The handset runs iOS 7.0 and it’s rather slim and has an impressively small width.

  • Nokia E97 Concept

    Nokia E97 Concept

    The concept phone’s screen is based on E-ink technology and it’ll be very easy to share with your friends.

  • Samsung Galaxy S5

    Samsung Galaxy S5

    The render here involves a 7.5 mm thick handset

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 vs Samsung Galaxy Note 2

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Samsung Galaxy Note 3 vs Samsung Galaxy Note 2

Introduction



Samsung Galaxy Note 3 vs Samsung Galaxy Note 2Samsung Galaxy Note 3 vs Samsung Galaxy Note 2
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 vs Samsung Galaxy Note 2
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 vs Samsung Galaxy Note 2
Anyone who has already gone through our Samsung Galaxy Note 3 review knows that the smartphone ranks among the best ones money can buy. It is an embodiment of high-end technology, and even though it doesn’t come cheap, it offers quite a lot of bang for its buck, not to mention that the hardware tucked under its hood makes it quite future-proof. And yes, as you might guess, the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is indeed better than its year-old predecessor, namely the Samsung Galaxy Note II. But what exactly makes it better and what has its maker improved upon in order to impress us this time around? And most importantly, is the Note II still worth holding on to now that its third iteration is out? Read on to find out.

Design

We can only commend Samsung for treating its phablet to a solid hardware upgrade without that having a negative effect on the device's proportions. The width and height of the Galaxy Note 3 come really close to those of the year-old Note II (151.2 x 79.2 x 8.3 mm for the former vs 151 x 80.5 x 9.4 mm for the latter), with the new model being only slightly taller, yet a hair narrower and noticeably thinner. Moreover, at 168 grams, the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is 14 grams lighter than the Note II, and is a tad easier to handle as a result.

Of course, one can simply forget about using the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 single-handedly as it is still as challenging to wield as its predecessor. But at the end of the day, that's a common trait for all phablets, so we can't complain, especially when we're compensated with that huge, gorgeous touchscreen. While the Samsung Galaxy Note II and Note 3 fit in larger pockets, they are quite bulky and some users will find them uncomfortable to carry around.

With its body made of glossy plastic, the Samsung Galaxy Note II looks and feels rather ordinary, especially now that we've grown tired of seeing the same design being rehashed over and over again. The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 can't be described as a luxury device either, but it feels better to the touch with its leather-like back plate. Unlike its glossy counterpart, the Note 3 resists fingerprints well and has a lot more grip thanks to its textured surface.

Both the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and the Samsung Galaxy Note II come with removable back covers, underneath which reside the slots for their SIM and microSD cards. Their batteries are also found there and are user-replaceable.

Physical buttons on both smartphones are arranged in an identical manner, with a physical “Home” key below the screen, accompanied by capacitive “Menu” and “Back” buttons. The power and volume buttons are placed on the right and left sides of these devices. We can gladly say that all buttons are easy to reach and operate. It is also nice that the capacitive keys on the Note 3 can be operated with the S Pen's tip. Speaking of which...

S Pen



Samsung Galaxy Note 3 vs Samsung Galaxy Note 2
The S Pen is a pressure-sensitive digital stylus included with both the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and the Galaxy Note II. It is one of the perks you get with any Note device, allowing you to draw on a virtual canvas or to take down hand-written notes, as well as to navigate through the interface and take advantage of the implemented S Pen features. While a recent teardown revealed that the Note 3 comes with a newer model Wacom digitizer (that is the component turning analog S Pen input into digital signals the phone can interpret), we find the S Pen on the Note II pretty much as precise and responsive as the one on its successor.


Display



Samsung Galaxy Note 3 vs Samsung Galaxy Note 2
Samsung has outfitted the Galaxy Note 3 with its best Super AMOLED screen to date. The panel, measuring 5.7 inches in diagonal, has a resolution of 1080 by 1920 pixels, as is now the norm for all high-end smartphones. Thanks to this high pixel count (386 ppi), graphics and text are represented clearly, in high detail. Colors are adjusted to appear slightly oversaturated by default – something typical for AMOLED tech – but an option in the display settings allows one to have them set at a much more natural level.
The slightly smaller, 5.5-inch Super AMOLED screen on the Samsung Galaxy Note II sure looked great when we first saw it in person. But with a resolution of 720 by 1280 pixels (resulting in a density of just 265 ppi), it is unable to deliver the same level of smoothness and detail achieved by the Note 3's display. Color representation is, again, a bit exaggerated and somewhat less accurate, but it can be adjusted to a more natural setting via the options menu.

One more thing that sets these two smartphones' screens apart is their brightness output. The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is relatively easy to use outdoors since its display shines quite brightly, while the Note II looks much dimmer when exposed to the sun's rays. Viewing angles are also better on the Note 3 as there's little color degradation when it is looked at from the side. The display on the Note II, on the other hand, turns blue even at moderate angles – not a deal breaker, but a flaw nonetheless.


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LG G Pad 8.3 Review

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LG G Pad 8.3 Review

Introduction


Struggling to secure its positions on the smartphone market, LG hasn't had much time to deal with the tablet one. That isn't to say LG has never released a tablet. In 2011, the company made its debut in that space by launching the Optimus Pad and its T-Mobile US variant, the G-Slate. In 2012, the company outed a revamped model, named Optimus Pad LTE, with the hallmark feature of all of these tablets being their 3D camera capabilities.

LG G Pad 8.3 Review
LG G Pad 8.3 Review
LG G Pad 8.3 Review
After a lengthy absence, LG is now back with a new tablet, and this time, it seems the South Korean company has come up with an even more ambitious product. Making full use of the hype surrounding the new G2 Android smartphone, LG is gearing up to release the G Pad 8.3 – a mid-sized tablet of premium quality that will take on fearsome rivals such as the Apple iPad mini and the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0.

Design


LG has evidently put a lot of love in the design of the G Pad 8.3. It's simply one premium tablet with a very slim and good-looking body. It's not so small (8.54 x 4.98 x 0.33 inches), due to the sizable top and bottom bezels, but it's narrow and light enough (11.92 oz or 338 g) to allow for comfortable holding. Almost the entire back plate is made of aluminum, which gives the tablet a sense of style and class, just like the iPad mini, and unlike the Galaxy Note 8.0. It's a bit surprising to an extent, having in mind that the G2 smartphone sports an entirely different design language. We're definitely glad to see LG employ a more ambitious approach with its tablet.

The high-end design of the G Pad 8.3 is also found with its physical keys, which click happily and reassuringly, making them feel just right. Naturally, the tablet features a microUSB port for charging and wired data connection, but we're also happy to report that there's a microSD card slot on board as well, allowing you to easily expand your storage space. In case you're wondering, there isn't an infrared port.

We'd once again like to congratulate LG for coming up with this premium design - we definitely hope that it'll make its way to the company's smartphone line-up next year. We wouldn't say that it's better than the iPad mini, since Apple's tablet is also quite spectacular, but it easily beats Samsung's offering in this segment, as well as low-cost tablet offerings like the Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7.

Display



LG G Pad 8.3 Review
LG G Pad 8.3 Review
LG has equipped the G Pad 8.3 with a wonderful display. It measures the healthy 8.3 inches, making it slightly bigger than the iPad mini's 7.9 inches and the Note 8.0's... 8.0 inches. Its biggest advantage, however, is its 1200 x 1920 resolution and wonderful pixel density of 273 ppi. In comparison, the iPad mini's pixel density is just 162 ppi (terrible), and the Note 8.0's one is 189 ppi (mediocre). Essentially, what this means is that the screen of LG's tablet manages to output some very clean and pixelization-free visuals that make everything look that much more enjoyable, including reading and multimedia content, such as images, video and games.

With this LCD IPS display, LG has just nailed the balance between blue and red, resulting in a perfect color temperature of about 6588 K (kelvin), with the reference point being 6500 K. That's pretty much unprecedented for such a display so far. What's even better is that the third primary color, green, is also very well balanced according to the other two. The result is a display that appears neither bluish (as most LCDs out there), nor greenish (as most AMOLEDs out there), nor reddish (the Z1 Ultra is a rare example for such a display). Cementing the status of perfect balance between the three primary colors is the average Delta E grayscale (measures the amount of color error) value of just 2.58, which is a wonderful figure

This isn't to say that the image quality of the display is perfect. Sadly, it isn't. For starters, the gamma is somewhat messed up, with highlights being a bit too bright and shadows being a bit too dark. Additionally, the brightness maxes out at around 345 nits, meaning that its outdoor visibility is less than ideal. The colors themselves may be well-balanced, but aren't perfectly accurate, as signified by the Color Gamut chart that you can find below, and the Delta E (rgbcmy) value of 5.61 (fair).

Viewing angles with this display seem to be good enough, similarly to most IPS panels out there.
 


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Nokia Lumia 1520 specs, release date, price roundup: 6" WP phablet to come with 20 MP camera and 4 HAAC mics

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Nokia will be going all out with its first phablet, it seems, as leaked Lumia 1520 specs today show that the company is throwing the kitchen sink of what it is capable to produce in mass quantities at the moment. It will be the best-equipped Windows Phone ever, and the one that will introduce the wonders of quad-core processors and Full HD displays to the platform for the first time. Let's recap what we've heard on the hush-hush so far about the Nokia Lumia 1520.

Design


First off, we should be getting a 152 x 81 x 8.7 mm handset, which are pretty good dimensions for a 6-incher, and the weight is clocked at 160g for the exclusive AT&T version, while the global release will weigh a tad more at 168g, as it will have a wireless charging coil built in. We've seen the phone leaked in black, red and yellow already, but more colors might be in store for it down the road. UPDATE: The phone also leaked in a cyan render, but whether or not this will stay just a render we'll find out for sure come October 22.

Nokia has allegedly added a microSD card slot for storage expansions, which is a good idea for a big screen phone, on which you are likely to keep many videos for watching on the go, plus the phone's PureView camera will entice to make footage of your own more often than usual. As for the SIM card, it will likely be of the nano SIM type, judging also from the piece on one of the leaked photos of the handset in the slideshow below.

Specs


Screen resolution of the 6" display will be expectedly 1080x1920 pixels Full HD, or 367pi pixel density at your disposal. The rumored screen technology is raising some eyebrows, as the leaked specs say it will be an AMOLED display, and Full HD versions of those are likely only done by Samsung for now, so Nokia might have made a strange bedfellow here. 

It is also to carry a PureMotion HD+ technology, which, coupled with Nokia's ClearBlack filter tech, means we will have a bright screen with excellent contrast and reflectivity ratios, great viewing angles, vivid colors and ultra fast refresh rates.

The processor that will be running the whole show is expected to be a quad-core Snapdragon 800, clocked at the respectable 2 GHz, which would make the Lumia 1520 the most powerful Windows Phone ever, coupled with its 2 GB of RAM. Sources are claiming also a 64 GB variant, which seems unlikely if we are going to get a microSD slot as well, but the 32 GB version is totally plausible. 

A beefy 3400 mAh battery is pegged to keep the Windows Phone 8.1 lights on, which is on the high side, even for a phablet, and should allow for a pretty good endurance, especially in terms of talk time and video playback. As any self-respecting smartphone with Snapdragon 800 chipset, the phone is likely to support most 4G/LTE networks you can think of, too.

20.7 MP PureView camera


We've arrived to the exclusive part of Nokia's first phablet, namely the rumored 20.7 MP camera with Carl Zeiss lens, improved Panorama and optical image stabilization. These specs alone should make it the best camera on a phablet, but since the sensor is a scaled down version of the 41 MP monster in the Lumia 1020, it will also offer 1.8x lossless zoom in stills mode, and 4x for HD video capture. 

The maximum usable resolution is expected to be 18 MP in 4:3 aspect ratio, meaning we will be getting an oval sensor like in the 1020 flagship. The dual capture mode means you will be getting 5 MP images in automatic mode with the pixel-binning technology that combines the information of four or more pixels into a "perfect" one. There will be also a full 16 MP mode for the ultimate detail capture. 

The Nokia Camera app is said to come with improved saturation settings, meaning we will have some exclusives on the software side of things with the phone as well. Last but not least, the Lumia 1520 is listed to arrive with not one or two but four HAAC microphones, meaning that we might have a winner in the sound recording aspect not only among phablets, but smartphones in general, too.

Price and release date

The Lumia 1520 phablet is expected to become official on October 22 at Nokia World in Abu Dhabi, and Nokia is already teasing it with new Glance Background screenshots that show 15:20 as the hour. The AT&T exclusive for the company's first phablet is to start the clock in the second week of November, while global availability is scheduled for the beginning of December. Pricing? That 6" Full HD AMOLED, the quad-core Snapdragon and the 20 MP PureView camera with lossless zoom and OIS are unlikely to come cheap. The phone is expected to command a premium phablet price of $299.99 on an AT&T contract, while costing the flagship-worthy $699.99 without carrier subsidies, which is said to be the global version tag as well


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Nexus 5 retail packaging leaks, hints at white variant

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nexus-5-white

A new leak has popped up showing what is claimed to be the retail packaging of the Nexus 5. Anyone surprised? The packaging itself is rather ho-hum, showing off a render of the device that matches what surfaced on Google Play yesterday. What really catches our attention, though, is what appears to be a render of the device in white.
More specifically, the box seems to show off a two-tone version with a white back and black front. While black and white variants are nothing new, this is the first we have seen of the Nexus 5 in an alternate color scheme. Previous leaks have showcased the device in black alone.
With retail packaging already seemingly assembled, the Nexus 5 might launch with multiple color options, which would be a nice touch. What do you guys think? Liking the idea of a white Nexus 5?
nexus-5-retail


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Nokia Going to Anounce new lumia

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Nokia World: what to expect from Nokia's biggest event

Nokia World is coming up in just three weeks and expectations are sky high as all rumors agree that Nokia is preparing to unveil an onslaught of devices. We expect to see Nokia lift the cover off six new devices on October 22nd in Abu Dhabi - a large screen phablet, a budget smartphone for the market, a tablet, and three new feature phones.

Nokia Lumia: new flagship, affordable phone and a tablet

Rumored Nokia Lumia 1520 for AT&T
Rumored Nokia Lumia 1520 for AT&T
The device all eyes are on is the mysterious Nokia Lumia 1520. It’s expected to become Nokia’s first large-screen phone fitting the niche Samsung opened with the Galaxy Note. Moreover, it will feature a PureView 20-megapixel camera with huge aspirations. Interestingly, the Lumia 1520 is expected to come to both AT&T and Verizon, America’s two largest carriers.

We’re hearing early rumors that the device will arrive in two very different models. The AT&T model is expected to feature a humongous 6-inch display, while the Verizon model will sport a more reasonable 5” screen, both with a 1080p resolution. The Verizon variation will also get a completely different name - the Nokia Lumia 929, but is expected to be the same device under the hood. Early whispers point out the device will pack top-shelf hardware as Snapdragon 800 with Adreno 330 graphics are in the cards.

The Nokia Lumia 2520 tablet has also just surfaced in graphics benchmarks, and it appears to be a good device that will not shoot for the stars. The screen resolution is likely to be around 1366 x 768 pixels, just like the one on the first generation Surface tablets, and less than we’re used to seeing in today’s high-end models. Still, under the hood, chances are we’ll see Snapdragon 800 with Adreno 330 graphics that will just fly at that relatively low resolution.

The third surprise from Nokia should come in the form of the Lumia 525. The Nokia Lumia 520 became the most popular Windows Phone handset ever and the Lumia 525 is expected to become its successor. We know nothing more than that, but we assume that we’ll see something similar to the 4” 480 x 800 pixel display on the Lumia 520 (hopefully a brighter display on it). Some sources also say the Lumia 525 will be a device focused on music and might ship with a more advanced than usual headset. This will probably not be a set of earplugs, but instead over-the-head headset.

Three new Ashas and accessories

Alleged Nokia Asha 502
 
The other three devices are all from the Asha series, hence feature phones. The trio is said to go by the names Nokia Asha 503, 502 and 500. The devices are expected to come in a bold new design with translucent dual-shot color panels. As with all feature phones, we’re talking about extremely basic phones with run-of-the-mill hardware (they’re all missing a flash light as per leaks). Nokia has instead included some cool software like Whatsapp that by all looks will come pre-loaded on these Asha handsets. They will also likely come with dual SIM card support. The release date for the Asha 503, 502 and 500 are unknown, but we’d place our bets on them arriving sooner as Nokia will probably rush to have some of the models available for the Holiday shopping season. The Ashas are extremely affordable devices, probably carrying prices of around $100 or less.

This is not all. Nokia will probably silently release new accessories as well around then. We have already seen at least one alien-looking colorful accessory that we don’t really know what to make of, but it surely looks alluring. Nokia has been designing some top notch accessories lately, but they are not very likely to get a prominent place during the keynote.

Nokia's last big event as an independent phone maker


With six new devices in tow, Nokia will likely have a very news-packed and intense event in just three weeks. Nokia World 2013 will also probably be the last event for Nokia as an independent phone maker as the Microsoft acquisition is expected to happen sometime in 2014. We expect to see Stephen Elop conduct another flawless presentation as he’s done in the past with the help of Nokia’s feature phone head Jo Harlow, and the focus should be on the Lumias. Remember that all this info comes from leaks and rumors, and nothing is set in stone just yet, so take it with the usual grain of salt. 
 


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Neo Hybrid Case for galaxy note 3 Review

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Spigen Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo Hybrid Case Review

Spigen’s Bounce case for the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 didn’t impress us all that much, partly because it’s nothing more than an entry-level protective case with a bland design. For the cost though for it, we can’t complain all that much, but something in the back of our head makes us yearn for something so much more. Well folks, the Spigen Neo Hybrid case looks like it’s going to do the trick just fine, seeing that it absolutely complements the handset’s design – while also giving it some good protection as well.

Visually, the Neo Hybrid case is pretty stunning, since its contrasting colors help to draw attention to it. Just like its other Neo Hybrid cases for other smartphones, this one for the Note 3 is comprised out of two components – a thermoplastic urethane body that’s strengthened by a colorful polycarbonate frame that hugs the sides of the case. With the TPU back cover, it’s a rubbery material that gives the case its protective nature. At the same time, it’s the part that absorbs shocks in the event it’s dropped. Meanwhile, the exterior polycarbonate frame simply keeps the entire thing intact. Then again, we really appreciate how the bright red color of our particular review is a great accent color for the case.

Overall, the case looks stunning, and it doesn’t really add a whole lot of bulk to the handset. Indeed, the Note 3 by itself is beefy thing to hold, but we’re glad that the Spigen Neo Hybrid case is extremely form-fitting and minimizes any unwanted heft. Not only is it a pretty darn good looking case, but it’ll even protect the handset to some extent – though, we’d imagine lengthy drops might still scruff it up, especially when the display is left exposed.

So the case is normally priced at $34.99 online, which might be a bit much for some people. Nevertheless, it’s a premium case that has that great combination of having an eye catching look with a fair amount of protection. Interestingly, Amazon currently is selling it for less at $24.99, so it's  a small piece of consolation to any prospective buyer. Therefore, if money isn’t a concern and you want to keep the Note 3 in tip-top condition, then the Spigen Neo Hybrid case is going to be a perfect option for you.
source: Spigen & Amazon
 


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Could this be the white Nexus 5?

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The retail packaging leak from earlier in the week already left us with two questions regarding a possible white Nexus 5: (a) does it even exist, and (b) does it look any good?
Personally, I wasn’t a fan of the white Nexus 4 since it’s front side remained black, and the glass-back of the phone anyway meant users would almost certainly have the phone in a case. However, if the white Nexus 5 looks anything like what a tipster sent to the Chinese website CtechCN, I have pretty much decided which version I want.
white nexus 5The tipster also told the site that the white variant would release alongside the black one, unlike the Nexus 4. While the authenticity cannot be judged at this point, I think that releasing a white version from Day 1 makes a lot of sense. The reason? Because of how much “white” we have seen in general in the KitKat leaks. The white version of the phone, particularly in the form above, would probably go better with the new look of Android we have seen so far.
[CtechCN]


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Hangouts on iOS updated with free voice calling over data, no SIM card required!!

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Hangouts iOS update
Phandroids. Don’t freak out now, but Hangouts for iOS just got a major update in the App Store. Before you get all up in arms, just rest easy in knowing that it will soon come to Android. Feeling better? Okay, good. Let’s get into what’s new.
Hangouts for iOS now gives users the ability to make free phone calls (US and Canada only) using their Google Voice numbers — no SIM card required. That’s right, calls will be made using WiFi or cellular data, freeing up your voice minutes and leaving you free to try and figure out what the hell you’re doing with your current voice plan. Using an iPad? No problem. iPod? Call whoever you’d like. It’s on the house. Normally, using Google Voice to make a call would still use your voice minutes, as the service would act as a middleman calling both parties. But this. This changes everything.
Us Androids need not feel left out, Google’s Vic Gundotra promises we’ll soon be “happy” like iOS users too. The only thing missing now is the ability to use Hangouts to send Google Voice SMS messages, which we’re sure will arrive in the sweet near future. Oh, yeah, there was also something about GIFs, Hangouts gradually turning down music volume when you receive a call, yada, yada….. FREE PHONE CALLS!


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Grand Theft Auto V Review

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Grand Theft Auto V ReviewRockstar Games has scaled a mountain with Grand Theft Auto V, creating the best-looking, best-sounding and, most importantly, best-playing version of gaming's most notorious franchise. Scaling one peak, however, reveals another—their cloud-piercing ambition to create a great ensemble video game drama, an epic of intersecting, interactive lives. Rockstar doesn't summit that new peak as impressively with GTA V, but in its first attempt at such an audacious feat, makes a good go of it.
This is a game that feels like both the best of what anyone might expect from a GTA and the exciting, somewhat raw, uneven first try at a more interesting future for these kinds of massive open-world adventures.
This is a game that works both as apotheosis and rough draft.
But perhaps you'd simply like to know how it compares to GTA IV, the previous Grand Theft Auto released way back in the spring of 2008. Fine. This new one is far better-looking on console even though it is running on the same hardware, has a more interesting and varied world, has better average mission quality, is longer (possibly the same length if GTA IV's two episodic expansions are counted), is better-engineered, is less serious, but lacks a lead character as compelling as Niko Bellic. Also, V has planes. And tanks.
GTA 5 Review

The Change

Like six of the previous seven Grand Theft Autos from Rockstar Games, GTA V is a third-person action game set in a massive three-dimensional world. This game's world is a detailed, fictionalized recreation of Los Angeles and of archetypal nearby deserts, forests, mountains, lakes and small towns.
The game's Los Santos is not real L.A. but a parody version, complete with parody radio stations, parody celebrities, and a parody Internet. A lot of it spoofs American politics and pop culture. Remember, this is the game series that has patriotic gun shops called Ammu-Nation. This is a GTA world stuffed with people who are mostly ridiculous. Almost everyone is a jerk and/or a joke. Almost everyone is a trope: dudebro financial guy, corrupt government agent, brainless starlet, mouth-breathing gamer, hardass lawyer. The game world is huge, varied, full of this kind of ridiculousness. It's there to entertain you.
The most notable change to the series' formula is that there are now three protagonists for the player to control. Instead of one ambitious Tommy Vercetti or one reluctant Niko Bellic, players of GTA V can switch back and forth to steer a trio of men through the congested Los Santos and the vast Blaine County to the north. They each have their own parts to play in their interwoven narrative.
The leads in the new game are all criminals but have very different lives. There's Franklin Clinton, a black South Central native who has a crappy job at a car dealership and who dreams of pulling off some grand crimes. There's Michael De Santa, a white supposedly-retired bank-robber living in the posh GTA Version of Beverly Hills. He shares a home with a wife who is sleeping with the tennis instructor (and the yoga teacher), an annoying, talentless daughter who is trying to get on a TV talent show, and a lazy son who spends his days trashtalking his way through violent online video games and trolling celebrities on GTA V's version of Twitter. The third lead is Michael's former bank heist partner, the balding white trash Trevor Phillips, now a meth dealer who lives up north in a trailer and who has a perforated line and the words "cut here" tattooed across his neck. The man is almost constantly screaming. He's a psycho. Franklin, Michael and Trevor are drawn together and, soon enough, begin planning heists while also pursuing their own criminal ventures.
GTA 5 Review
In the older Grand Theft Autos and in many of the games that copied Rockstar's open-world formula, a player got around by running around or by making their character run up to any car or truck idling in traffic or parked on the side of the road and jack it. In the new game, there's a third option. The player can hop across the map by changing characters and dropping into one of the other guys' lives.
Once the game allows access to all three lead characters—and for much but not all of the rest of the game—the player can press a button on their controller to produce a circle that shows portraits of the game's three leads. After one more input by the player to switch characters, the game's camera will suddenly be reeled up into the sky, shift to another point above GTA V's huge world and then push down onto the new character the player chose to control. These switches vary in length of time, but typically take fewer than 30 seconds. Michael, Franklin and Trevor don't sit idle waiting to be controlled. Whoever the player has switched to will appear to have been going about his day. A short scene will play out before the player has control. Judging by these transitional scenes, Trevor's days seem to involve getting thrown out of places, tying men to the bottoms of piers, or stumbling around drunkenly while wearing only boots, socks and underwear. Michael's and Franklin's days are more like yours or mine (hopefully!).
GTA 5 Review
Players have no say as to where the character they're switching to is hanging out in the world. The destination of the character switch is a surprise, which adds a welcome new variable to the GTA formula. Character-switching winds up being similar to flipping between three TV channels. You'll know, in general, what you're going to be tuning into, but you won't know where they're at in the show until you flip.
As before in GTA games, missions are sprinkled throughout the game world, Major missions—some 75 of them, despite what the in-game mission counter says—are represented by capital letters that are color-coded to indicate which of the three main characters can initiate them. The new game's pile of major sidequests—of which there are a few dozen—are also color-coded. Some quest-givers have different missions for different characters and will weave in and out of each of the three leads' threaded narratives. All of that enables GTA V to feel like the least linear game in the series, because even though it flows to certain bottleneck moments, it affords the player great liberty in choosing where to go, who to meet, what missions to go on—all with the randomized surprise of where on the map the player will be when they switch characters—to shake things up.
Once missions are triggered, the game narrows the player's options by funneling them into a carefully-planned sequence of cutscenes and tasks, similar to how other Grand Theft Autos have done it. But in this game, some missions will involve two or even three playable characters. Those missions will allow players to switch characters on the fly. During missions, the character switches are as quick as a finger-snap.
Some in-mission switches will be minor, involving, say, switching from Michael taking cover behind a car in a shootout with the cops to Trevor who is holding a sniper rifle while standing on a roof overlooking the firefight.
Other switches are spectacular, flipping, in one instance, from a character on a train that's about to cross a bridge high above a river to a partner in crime in a boat on the river far below. The latter changes are often triggered automatically, but they nonetheless help make the missions feel more varied, less like a sequence of events and more like a juggle of multiple, simultaneous chaotic moments.
Regardless of all of that, players who plumb Grand Theft Auto's deep trove of missions, side missions, hobbies, mini-games, diversions, and random events will spend much of their time playing solo as whichever character they prefer. They'll be doing what GTA players have long done: stealing a convertible, flipping radio stations, peeling down the highway, racing away from some pissed off cops and heading toward... a game of darts? A rampage? The military base where, this time, they're going to steal a fighter jet

The Numbers

Some GTA players ignore all the story missions and just play in the games' chaotic sandbox. Others rush through the storyline. When I play open world games, I'm a wanderer and a checklist checker-offer. In advance of my review, I played Grand Theft Auto V for the better part of a week, taking my time to explore Los Santos and Blaine County instead of just driving from mission to mission. I'm a sucker for great scenery and interesting sidequests. The game is full of both.
A peer who mainlined the story and did few sidequests cleared the game in about 30 hours.
Another who was racing just from story mission to story mission was moving at faster than that rate.
I moseyed and didn't even do the game's first major heist until 11 hours into the game, didn't unlock the third main character until after that and saw the credits roll, with 69 main quests done and 33 sidequests done in 42 hours. Fascinatingly, the time I spent as each of the three main characters was nearly identical:
GTA 5 Review
Playing the game this way let me take the story slowly and allowed me to poke around in sidequest after sidequest. The side missions opened more of the game up, triggering new special mission types like, say, base-jumping, while improving my understanding of the characters and enhancing the richness of the game's world. Refrain from doing the sidequests and the game won't just fail to send you parachuting, but it won't take you to the peak of its highest mountain. Don't do the sidequests and you won't go jogging with a woman on the beach, you won't be trying to steal celebrities' belongings for an elderly demented British couple, you won't see how Trevor deals with immigration issues, and you won't see how, in a succession of three optional missions sprinkled throughout the game, each of the GTA V's lead characters reacts to a man who is trying to legalize marijuana.
Even with the major side missions done, the game will only take you to Blaine County's sprawling wind farm once, will never take you to its prison and will ignore the game's stadiums and speedway. This is not a negative. Rather, it's a testament to how immense and full of attractions GTA V's world is. Fly over the game's spaghetti of roads and bridges and you'll see that Rockstar has, graphically, ceased to operate in visual metaphor and instead has drawn with detailed realism a metropolis and its surroundings that are full of every kind of landmark and incidental element of real world terrain that you can think of: from fictionalized versions of the Hollywood sign, the Getty Center, the Rose Bowl, LAX airport and L.A.'s famous urban drainage canals, to trailer parks, ranches, quarries, shipping docks, diners, and some place where people paint rocks in the hopes of signaling aliens. Some of GTA V's magnificent landscape may be there just for virtual sightseeing. Some of it may be used as a playground in the October-scheduled Grand Theft Auto Online, which, for starters, will use GTA V's map (and is free for anyone who buys GTA V) .
GTA 5 Review
GTA V's lands and bodies of water also likely hold at least a hundred secrets—specifically hidden collectibles of which I only found three in my 42 hours of playing. There is just so much in the game to explore, much of it trading off the appeal of real world geography. If the magnificence of a massive lake, the eeriness of an abandoned barn or the allure of biking up a big mountain does nothing for you, look for more fantastical game worlds to play.

The Four Games In a GTA

Vast as the game is, it can be boiled down into four elements. Every GTA, after all, is essentially four games happening at once. In no particular order, they are:
1) The Menu of Mini-Games: In a way, the cities of Grand Theft Auto games are glorified menus that grant access to smaller, more focused games. Want to play a game of darts? Or a video game version of yoga? Or tennis? Or golf? Or fly planes through targets? Or use said planes to drop things on targets? Or race cars? Race boats? Do a triathalon? Drive to the correct spot in GTA V and you can do that stuff. Versions of some of these activities have appeared in GTA games before; others are new. Games such as tennis are complex enough to stand as small games of their own.
For better or worse, though, these mini-games remain, for me, the least appealing part of the series. They are presented, more or less, dispassionately, without the snark and satire of the rest of the game's world. They are, generally, exactly what you'd expect them to be. The darts game is just that, a darts game. There's no flair, no imaginative gameplay twist, no buzz of that something special that makes a game or a game-within-a-game fun.
GTA V may have more mini-games than ever before, but these activities remain one-time tries for anyone but completionists, straight-faced diversions in a game world that otherwise seems to go out of its way to get a reaction out of you.
2) The Chemistry Set: GTA's best element has always been its mad mutation of Pac-Man, its chase-or-be-chased action, set across what used to be a mostly-urban grid. The genius of 2001's GTA III and its successors was their ability to give players an ever-flowing street-level version of this action and to give players an ever-increasing amount of freedom as to how they'd play it out. If you steal a car or shoot someone in these games, the police may well come after you. Whether you flee or fight back, you'll deal with an intensifying response. The cops start driving toward you. If you're on foot, you're in for a gunfight. If you're in a car, you're in for a crazy chase. You'll either get your character killed or manage to escape, but, usually, there will be a lot of chaos along the way. In GTA V, there are up to five "star" levels of notoriety, though when you're down to zero there are actually relatively few cops around. Get to three or four stars and the police will send helicopters after you.
The big change to how GTA's central cops-and-robbers system flows involves how the cops chase you. If the police see you, the mini-map in the lower lefthand corner of the screen will flash blue and red, and the cops will be all over you. Give the cops the slip, and the mini-map reverts to black and gray, but little flashing dots representing the police will buzz through the mini-map, projecting a cone that represents each cop's line of sight. What's happening there is that the cops are hunting you down. You can't stay stationary and hide. You have to move. You have to keep veering out of the line of sight until the police lose interest.
GTA 5 Review
The police have always been the most interesting part of GTA's chemistry set, but there have been other elements mixed in, usually tied to specific vehicles. In the past, for example, stealing a taxi allowed players to start finding passengers and taking them to their requested destinations. That returns in V. In the past, other missions might spawn after stealing a tractor trailer or police car or delivery van or fire truck. Much of that appears to have been removed for V, though the wide range of vehicles to steal remains. If you're stealing, say, a helicopter in this game, you're largely just doing it for the fun of it.
GTA IV had added a cell phone to the mix and gave the player a lot of in-game friends who would call and ask to hang out. These friends were annoying. These people seemed to always want to go to bars or play pool or do any other of GTA IV's less fun activities. Each of the lead characters in GTA V has a cell phone and friends and family who call (or text or e-mail), but they rarely ask you to do anything with them. You can go to the bar with them if you'd like, but only at your prompting.
So it's not vehicles or friends that play a big role in tweaking the GTA chemistry set this time around. Instead, it's money. The game runs on a much more complex economy than its predecessors and builds greatly on some property-ownership ideas introduced in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. In V, you can buy properties, take in weekly piles of money from those properties and even go on missions to keep that take high. Some of your property income will be affected by actions in the world. For example, the scrap yard yields a certain amount of money each week based on how many cars you've smashed in the game.3P
More interestingly, you can play the stock market. The game runs two stock markets, one controlled locally within the game and the other whose company stock prices are, according to Rockstar, determined by how the mass ofGTA V players is all playing the game. Should, for example, one type of car get stolen a lot then the stock price of the auto-maker behind it will be affected. Stocks also change prices based on missions players are going on, so it behooves players to listen to their mission-givers and, perhaps, buy a ton of stock in the company whose rival CEO you've just been asked to assassinate.
GTA V's chemistry set is well-tuned for players to mess with. It's tempting as ever to nudge an element here or there in it and see what happens as a result. You know, like... well, what would happen if I drove through the airport gate and tried to steal a private jet? What if I put all my money in Burger Shot stocks? What if I steal that fire truck? Go ahead and see what happens...
3) The Search For Stuff: It might be apostasy to purists of video game theory, but one of the most enjoyable things to do in GTA games, including this new one, is to find the next bit of non-interactive or barely-interactive content. GTA V is, in a sense, a massive treasure hunt. Like the franchise entries before it, it's got a massive world that has all kinds of things in it that the developers would like you to find but aren't going to make it easy for you to find. Well, not all of it's easy to find. Some of what's in the game is what series veterans would expect. You've got new in-game TV shows to watch. There are more than a dozen of radio stations to listen to, all with funny, satirical commercials. You can spend a few minutes in the game watching Rockstar's send-up to nearly-incoherent foreign films.
GTA 5 Review
The game's fake Internet is bursting with websites that spoof major clothing brands, online dating services, self-help movements and more. None of this makes GTA V more interactive, but it helps make its world more interesting. It also makes the game a time capsule as the targets of its mockery—everyone from predatory lenders to people who camp out for iPhones, everything from skinny jeans to Google Maps—may not be around or be recognizable or may simply not be annoying in the same way by the time Rockstar makes another GTA.
A note about all this satire: it can be hard to take Rockstar's skewering of modern (mostly American) culture all that seriously in a game that also offers interactive first-person lapdances as well as easy knocks at idiotic things like reality shows. Some might see the old Shakespearean gesture to both the highbrow and the lowbrow in GTA V's satirical abuse of tax-and-spend liberals and its jokey presentation of pot use. But GTA has done this stuff before, and its satirical newscasts—"Weazel News: Confirming Your Prejudices"—just don't sting as much since they've stung so many times before. GTA V finds its mark and makes a piercing point when it presents some of its satire in the game's playable missions. Without spoiling it, one mission makes its point quite clearly about America's post 9/11 treatment of people who look a certain way. By being interactive, it makes the player fascinatingly complicit in what it appears to criticize.
Most of GTA V's content hunt is actually not that heady. It's also rarely dull. At turn after turn, there's a new character to find or new place to visit, new thing to watch or listen to. For those who like to hunt and peck and peer at all corners of a game world, there's much here to like.
GTA 5 Review
4) The Story. There's a scripted adventure to be had in these games, one with a beginning middle and end. GTA V's got that, too. That's where the ensemble comes in and that's where the game ceases to be a perfecting of what has come before it in the franchise and more of an attempt, imperfectly, to do something new.
At its most basic, GTA V is a story about three men who come together to commit new crimes. Because they can't be together at all times, the game's writers and mission scripters needed to repeatedly find reasons to bring Michael, Trevor and Franklin together and then to split them up. While doing that, they needed to keep all three men interesting. Here, their success was mixed.
Separately, Trevor outshines Michael and Franklin. A complete nutjob who enters the game in a way that made him immediately incorrigible and fascinating, Trevor is the right kind of crazy for a GTA. His character fits his action, overcoming a flaw in previous GTAs that made the characters that players controlled in the cutscenes (generally calm, bemused, and often reluctant men of action) feel wildly inconsistent with the ones they controlled in gameplay (generally mass murderers willing to blow up dams, drive over pedestrians and machine-gun dozens of cops). Trevor is nuts in his gameplay. He's nuts in his cutscenes. He also has weird relationships with his friends, is haunted by things that happened in his and Michael's past and, overall, is someone who is interesting to control and find out more about.
Michael is, perhaps, half as interesting. His family dramas brim with potential but never achieve anything more than sitcom complexity. He's in therapy, but that is played mostly for satire. Any epiphanies the character has feel unearned. He has his own issues with his past and he has potential as a mentor to Franklin, but aside from a dalliance with a possible career change at one point in the game, he feels paint-by-numbers and lacking in surprise or meaningful development.
Franklin is enriched by his friendship with Lamar, a hotheaded friend from South Central who steals scenes early and late in the game. Otherwise, though, Franklin is largely a blank, coming to life a little when exchanging e-mails with his ex-girlfriend but otherwise failing to distinguish himself as anything other than a mostly reasonable aspiring crook.
Many of Grand Theft Auto's previous protagonists were as blank or even more bereft of a memorable personality than Franklin, so it may seem unfair to knock two thirds of the leading cast. But the ensemble approach invites comparisons across that cast, and Michael and Franklin pay the price of the excellence of Trevor. Good supporting casts for all three leads at least help even things out. It's one of GTA V's best touches that switching from one character to the next also feels like changing social circles. The problem is that Michael and Franklin, when sharing a scene with Trevor, lose out. He's the one to keep your eyes on. And he's the spark of most of the interesting exchanges between the characters. Trevor also follows Cole Phelps and John Marston, two exceptionally well-written, deep, interesting leads in Rockstar games. He ranks up there with them. His two buddies do not.
There are hints in the game of the storytelling power of having the player know more about what's happening with all three characters than Michael, Trevor and Franklin do. Rare as that kind of thing is in games, Rockstar at least had previously played with the gulf between character knowledge and player knowledge to great success in its and Team Bondi's 2011 L.A. Noire. For a stretch of the game, two characters have a very different understanding of something that happened in the past. The player knows the truth even as they control one of the characters who still believes a lie. There are few other examples like that in the game. But those parts of the story don't quite feel fully realized; they're glimpses of a fascinating new way to tell interactive stories, but their potential never feels sufficiently tapped.
GTA 5 Review
There's something undeniably potent about experiencing a story as a variety of members of an ensemble cast. For all the multi-character role-playing games out there, the concept feels largely untapped. In the writing and the mechanics of giving GTA V's lead trio missions together, Rockstar's new game feels like it is making progress, but not quite getting it, not quite justifying narratively why these guys would stick together, not quite getting the most out of what a player's relationship to three different characters would be and, simply, not quite presenting as evenly excellent a lead cast of characters as it probably would have liked to.
Players may find themselves occasionally yearning for the simple, single arc of GTA IV's Niko Bellic, forgetting the dull parts in a narrative that was stretched too thin. Michael, Trevor and Franklin benefit from shorter tales but would have benefitted even more from more interesting arcs and intersections.

The Heists

Michael, Franklin and Trevor are brought together in GTA V to go on heists. While promoting the game, Rockstar officials described a handful of malleable heist missions that would see the lead characters coming together. These missions would give the player the opportunity to tweak some variables and play the heist differently from other gamers. These capital-H Heist missions do present some of the most exciting big-action moments of the game's main storyline, but they're, surprisingly, not the game's best missions. They're not even all of the game's biggest missions.
GTA 5 Review
Something is off about the Heists. They may branch. They may be playable different, fun ways. But some of the choices and systems associated with them feel half-baked. The Heists present options, for example, about which henchmen to bring along. Some of these henchmen are found in the game world. They can serve roles as drivers or gunmen. The henchmen have varying skill levels and demand a different percentage of a heist's haul. Really bad henchmen will screw up part of a heist. Good ones gain stat bonuses after finishing a heist. The problem is that nearly none of that seems to matter. The consequences of using these henchmen or of repeatedly using one in order to raise their stats are nearly invisible. It seems to matter little what their take is, because players make a decent amount of money in this game no matter what.
Perhaps these core specially-designated Heist missions should be seen as great bonding moments for Michael, Trevor and Franklin. Sometimes, they are. But non-Heist missions provide good moments for these characters—and some excellent interactive robberies—of their own.
GTA 5 Review

What It Feels Like

GTA V's credits roll for 36 minutes. For however many hours they play the game, players will feel that they are playing a game made by the amount of people it takes to keep a crawl rolling that long. The attention to detail inGTA V is likely unparalleled in any other video game.
Park a car and you'll hear a few rattles as the engine cools.
Finish a mission as a man is ranting behind you and stick around... that rant just might go on for a while.
In comparing my experiences in some of GTA V's missions with others who've played them, we've discovered that one of us has heard lengthy in-game conversations that the other missed. It's likely that players’ memories of theGTA V and understanding of the game's events will vary because of this.
Thanks to the army of people who made the game, there is a generous amount of polish in the game and a lot of fixes that correct old GTA aggravations. A series once known in part for bad controls and unforgiving un-checkpointed missions now sports tight shooting, decent stealth and refined driving controls. Missions now checkpoint so much that players may start complaining the other way: that the game holds players' hands too much. (Rockstar should be able to deflect that criticism, since each mission includes several gold-medal completion requirements that reward uncheckpointed, elite play.)
GTA 5 Review
Another nice touch: each of the game's three lead characters has stats associated with driving, shooting and other basic abilities that all improve with use. This helps makes controlling the game easier the more you play it. Early in the game, I kept retrying a race that was giving me fits. Each attempt didn't just help me learn the game's car physics; it made my driver, Franklin in this case, better at turning corners. Each character also has a metered special ability. Franklin's ability, which slows down time while driving, makes hairpin turns during car chases a cinch and makes evading the cops more fun and less frustrating.
All of this makes GTA V feel more player-friendly than previous GTAs. This one wastes less of your time and forgives more of your small errors than any before it. It also just makes the experience of playing it more pleasant. Here's a game that is well-resourced enough to dole out long conversations between your character and his passenger while driving, changes those conversations slightly (as IV did) if you're repeating the mission, interrupts those conversations with some cursing from your passenger if you bump into traffic mid-conversation, and then picks up from that interruption to continue the scripted conversation without missing a beat. Incredible.
As Rockstar has made its GTA games the studio has gradually improved things like controls and checkpoints to get to where V is, but those improvements had seemed to come paired with a taming of GTA's possibilities. OlderGTA games' open-ended missions let players find creative solutions to accomplish various driving or assassination tasks. That approach gave way to missions in the likes of GTA IV that had fewer and, often, only one way to complete them. GTA V, thankfully, begins to turn against that. Some missions explicitly ask the player to plan an attack, supposedly any way the player would like to. Others simply offer an objective and leave it to the player to creatively figure out how to accomplish it. In a game so filled with scripted content, this is a welcome return to an earlier form.
It's also impressive that GTA V seems to continuously find new ways to surprise its players by populating its world with small interactive events. The idea for the game's semi-random encounters comes from the pedestrian missions in GTA IV that were expanded in Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption. In both games, players would happen upon characters who had a few lines of speech and maybe a request to be transported somewhere or to have someone hunted down. GTA V is bursting with these kinds of things. Some, like the guy who is standing on his driveway looking at the clothes his enraged wife has thrown out of a window and who needs a ride out of there, seem tied to certain places on the map. Others, like the game's numerous sidewalk robberies, seemingly happen anywhere. These small incidents are generally welcome—except the robberies, which are V's worst annoyance—and can lead to good things. A man needing a ride to the airport, for example, gave Franklin a great stock tip. Who knows what else is hiding in Los Santos.
By the end of GTA V, such as there is an end to GTA V, the player will have stories to tell. One is the story of Michael, Franklin and Trevor and follows the main plotline. That one's ok. The better story to tell will be the one about all the things that happened at the margins... in the streets and alleys, off the airfields and down in the valleys. Much of that was written by Rockstar, too, and some of it was simply enabled by the marvelous chemistry set of their game world.
Beyond all of this, however, is one consistent fact about so many of the best video games: they create great places in which to play. Underpinning everything else, in GTA V, Rockstar has created one of gaming's most impressive worlds. They've built on geography that anyone who has visited L.A. or hiked a trail will recognize and appreciate.
Occasionally Grand Theft Auto V's main missions will push players up the map and out of the city, into the big-sky northern half of the game. In one such moment the player is controlling Trevor. He's on a motorbike. He's chasing a plane that is also heading north. Blaine County stretches as far as the eye can see, a world of possibilities. You can go to all those places you can see. You can do stuff there, probably cause some mayhem or go on a mission or just explore. It'll look good when you get there, too. Mount Chiliad looms in the distance.
That's GTA V at its best—excelling at what you thought GTAs were supposed to do, while heading for the next impossibly high peak.


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LG now mass-producing curved 6-inch smartphone display

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LG Electronics has confirmed after months of speculation that flexible displays have now entered mass production. Specifically, the company’s display unit announced a 6-inch display made of plastic that is bendable and unbreakable according to a report from Reuters.
Sources close to the project say LG is planning to launch a smartphone with a curved display next month to keep pace with rival Samsung. Last month, Samsung said they would unveil a smartphone with a curved display in October. Their phone is expected to feature a display curved side to side while LG’s device will be curved top to bottom, sources claim.
Specifications show the display will weigh in at 7.2g and measures just 0.44mm thick. Many believe the device in question is the rumored LG G Flex which is expected to be a top-tier phone carrying a Snapdragon 800 processor and Adreno 330 graphics.
When the phone does launch – whatever name it takes – expect it to be in extremely short supply. Yields of curved displays are said to be extremely low. For example, LG will be doing good to turn out just 300,000 units per month. If the handset proves to be popular, that could be a serious issue.
When you consider Apple sold 9 million iPhones during opening weekend last month, it would take LG more than three months just to turn out a million phones at the current production rate. Do the math and well, it’d take a really long time to turn out that many devices.


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Nokia Lumia 1020 review

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Nokia arrived late to the Windows Phone party at the end of 2011 but, since then, it has come to dominate Microsoft’s mobile ecosystem. Of those manufacturers that originally launched handsets with Windows Phone 7, just Samsung and HTC remain, joined more recently by Huawei, but none have come close to the level of commitment to the platform that Nokia has invested.
Not content to be just another ‘me-too’ device manufacturer, Nokia has worked hard to differentiate its Windows Phone offering. Its use of color in its hardware design has made its devices stand out among legions of black and white handsets. It has added value to its range by developing apps exclusively available on its Lumia devices. And it has worked to augment the operating system with new features through its own firmware updates, such as the recent ‘Amber’ release, bundled with the latest GDR2 update for Windows Phone 8.
Nokia has launched other award-winning handsets with PureView imaging features – including the Lumia 920 and Lumia 925 – and each of them has proven that the company still has what it takes to lead the way in smartphone imaging. But this summer, the company announced the Lumia 1020, its first Windows Phone featuring a 41MP PureView camera.


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1Password 4 for Mac makes managing all your passwords easy and secure

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Passwords stink. Password policies vary widely from the many sites you choose or have to use, and satisfying them all is hard, and hard to keep up with. That's why 1Password is an invaluable application — and the new 1Password 4 qualifies as a worthy update.

Whether it's a password policy that says you need 8 to 14 characters with a capital letter and a number, but no symbols, or a policy that changes it every 20 days, or a policy that requires 10 letters, 2 numerals, a soundtrack and a plot, managing passwords can be ridiculous.

But there's a reason we need to get better at passwords: We are human. We are weak. We use the same username, email address, and password repeatedly. The most commonly used password is, well, "password."

1Password

In addition, major companies like Adobe and Sony have been hacked and user passwords have been stolen. From these breaches, take away some good practices:
  • Never use the same password in two places.

  • Never save your credit card, address or other personal information if possible.

This is where 1Password comes in. 1Password is a Mac, iOS, Windows, and Android application. It's a password locker, generator, and new in version 4, an auditor.

At its most simple, 1Password offers to store passwords as they are entered into websites. It will then allow you to autofill them on subsequent log in attempts using Cmd- as a keyboard shortcut. It uses either a browser plug-in or a menu bar application, 1Password Mini, to autofill the username and password. It will recognize the username and password needed for the page, but also allows searching of all saved passwords.

1Password

But 1Password is a little better than just a password locker. It generates passwords that comply with the various absurd requirements, fills in the fields as you're creating web page accounts, and saves them for you all in a few short steps.

It also saves credit card information, logins (similar to passwords), identities contaning address information for easy autofill, secure notes, and other categories (bank accounts, social security numbers, reward program numbers, licenses, and more.)

1Password

And new in version 4 is the ability to create 'vaults' so users can store account logins and passwords in contexts, such as a "work" vault, a "parents" vault, and so on.

How can this be secure?



Users are required to essentially trust their digital life to this application and its data file. How can it be trusted? Because AgileBits, makers of 1Password, are using good encryption.

1Password

AES-256 Authenticated Encryption and PBKDF2 calibration. AES-256 uses long keys that are difficult to attack and tough to derive. PBKDF2 is used to slow down attempts to crack the master password that secures the 1Password data.

That's glossing over the math, but it is safe to say that AES-256 is quite difficult to attack. Additionally, securing the metadata, the information around the login is important. Item titles and URLs are now always encrypted.

1Password


How does 1Password assist in correcting a user's bad habits?



1Password does two things:
  • Password generation. You can use the application, browser plug-in, or menu bar mini-app to create and auto-fill a strong password that complies with the requirements of the site (mixed case, numerals, hyphens, and password length.) It's appreciated that they've also made "pronouncable" an option, which helps with remembering passwords occasionally.

  • For password generation, it does NOT create long passwords made of multiple words. These are desirable, because they're also human memorable.


1Password

To help manage existing passwords better, the 1Password window has a series of filters that display accounts consisting of weak passwords, duplicate passwords, and date ranges on passwords for those between 6 and 12 months old, 1 and 3 years old, and more than 3 years old.

Admittedly, we had to spend some time and go through resetting passwords to clean up the bulk of old, duplicate weak passwords. But 1Password does a good job of making users aware of their bad habits.

1Password

1Password syncs the encrypted password store, and can sync it to the cloud. All versions of 1Password v4 for Mac sync to Dropbox. The Mac App Store version syncs to iCloud as well. However, the Mac App Store does not allow upgrade pricing from earlier versions, so it's worth it to decide if users need iCloud syncing, as well as preferences for purchasing from the Mac App Store, or directly from Agilebits.com

A Word on Mavericks



OS X 10.9 Mavericks includes a new feature called iCloud Keychain, where Safari will suggest a password and track it, syncing to iOS. However, its password generation and organzation are much more simplified, taking away options 1Password provides, and notably only working on Apple iOS7 and Mavericks.

In short, Apple's solution is good, and solves encouraging Apple users to use good passwords almost by default, but 1Password is much more flexible — data isn't tied to iCloud, isn't tied to Apple products only, and doesn't have to be synchronized over Wi-Fi. 1Password will also allow synchronization over USB, which means users can still have passwords on iOS without having to store them on Dropbox or iCloud.

1Password


Score: 4 out of 5




4 out of 5


Pros



  • Strong password generation
  • Synchronization of encrypted password file
  • Easy password form filling to login


Cons



  • Doesn't create any diceware-style passwords.
  • Due to the awkward way some websites create a password on a separate page as the username, 1Password will occasionally only save the password and not username to its locker.
 


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