Hasta La Gadget! Page not found

Sep 11

EE 4G LTE hands-on: Speed tests!

EE‘s 4G LTE network is already live, and so we grabbed some hands-on time to see just how quickly the new breed of 4G handsets set to hit the UK can run. The numbers – on what’s an unstressed network, it’s worth remembering – are certainly impressive, with download rates in excess of 34Mbps and uploads of over 22Mbps at times.

The more usual rates we saw were in the 26-30Mbps download range, here in London, while uploads generally hovered in the range of 12-13Mbps. Peak bursts improved those numbers considerably, while ping times hovered around the 60-70ms mark.

Of course, it’s easy to see ridiculously high speeds when there’s hardly anyone else using the network; we saw similarly eye-watering figures from Verizon’s initial benchmarking in the US. That settled into somewhat less incredible numbers eventually, though still well in excess of what 3G could deliver.

EE is talking about LTE speeds around 4-5x what the current 3G network offers, which is still a considerable improvement, though we’ll need to wait until the roll-out begins in the tail-end of 2012 to see how it holds up in practice. The first four cities go live from today, broadening to sixteen cities by the end of the year.

EE 4G LTE hands-on: Speed tests! is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Sep 01

Early benchmark scores are in for the Sony Xperia T, TX and V

Posted in: Today's Chili

We’ve already benchmarked the Galaxy Note II and the ZTE Grand X IN at IFA, and as the week wraps up we’re circling back to test the mettle of other handsets announced here in Berlin. We ran mobile benchmarks on Sony’s new flagship Xperia T, the Xperia TX (the US version of the T) and the LTE-enabled Xperia V. All three devices pack dual-core Snapdragon S4 Krait processors clocked at 1.5GHz, and they’re currently running Ice Cream Sandwich — though a Jelly Bean update is reportedly on the way. Meet us past the break for a first look at how these smartphones stack up.

Continue reading Early benchmark scores are in for the Sony Xperia T, TX and V

Filed under: Cellphones

Early benchmark scores are in for the Sony Xperia T, TX and V originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Sep 2012 08:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments

Aug 31

Samsung Galaxy Note II gets early benchmark treatment at IFA

Posted in: Today's Chili

Here at IFA, the Galaxy Note II‘s glossy plastic build is practically fading under the ambush of cameras snapping away at Samsung’s booth, but clearly this phone is more than just a (super sized) pretty face, and it’s time to take a look at what’s under the hood. As mentioned in our hands-on, Samsung upgraded the original Note’s dual-core 1.4GHz chipset to a quad-core 1.6GHz Exynos processor. We put the device to the test today to see how those amped-up insides reflect in the Note II’s benchmark scores. As you’ll see below, Sammy’s latest handset fares significantly better than the original Note and the Galaxy S III.

	Galaxy Note II	Galaxy Note (international)	Galaxy S III (I9300)
AnTuTu	11,736	N/A	11,960
Quadrant	6,644	3,810	4,454
Vellamo	2,466	901	1,751
SunSpider 0.9.1 (ms, lower is better)	1,330	2,902	1,460
CF-Bench	15,305	N/A	13,110
GL Benchmark Egypt Offscreen	114 fps	N/A	99 fps

Oh, what a difference a processor makes. Clearly the step up to a quad-core CPU is to thank for the large performance delta between the Note II and the last-gen Note, though the international version of the Galaxy S III, with a quad-core 1.4Ghz Exynos processor, also falls behind in Quadrant and other tests. The Note II also trumped its Samsung siblings on the browser-focused Vellamo benchmark, which hints at snappier performance on this phone. The phone’s graphics chops look pretty good, too, if the GL Benchmark score is any indication. Our testing got cut short before we could run SunSpider, but we’ll add that figure shortly.

Update: We’ve added SunSpider as well — the device clocked in at 1,330ms, which is a hair faster than the Galaxy S III.

Filed under: Cellphones

Samsung Galaxy Note II gets early benchmark treatment at IFA originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Aug 2012 07:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments

Aug 30

ZTE Grand X IN: early benchmarks for the latest Intel-powered smartphone

Posted in: Today's Chili

It’s a shame when phones feel outdated even as they hit the market, but that’s sadly what happened with the original Grand X. However, as you may have heard a few hours ago, the handset’s just had a healthy revamp. The spec-bumped version is called the Grand X IN — it’s due out next month and we’ve just had a chance to run some early benchmarks to test the performance of its vanilla Android 4 OS and new Intel engine. Among a range of improvements, including an 8-megapixel camera with burst mode (instead of the Grand X’s dowdy five with no burst) and 1GB of RAM (instead of 512MB), the biggest change is that processor: out goes the old NVIDIA Tegra 2 and in comes a Medfield Z2460. Yep, that’s the exact same chip we’ve seen put to good effect in the Orange San Diego, but how does it fare in this device? Click past the break for a head-to-head comparison with the San Diego, which is cheaper but slightly less well-built (and still running Gingerbread), and the Galaxy Nexus, which costs more but comes with a far better display.

Continue reading ZTE Grand X IN: early benchmarks for the latest Intel-powered smartphone

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

ZTE Grand X IN: early benchmarks for the latest Intel-powered smartphone originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Aug 2012 12:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments

Aug 10

Sony LT25i Tsubasa pops up in benchmarks, may swell the high-speed Xperia ranks

Posted in: Today's Chili

Add another future Sony Xperia model to a rapidly growing pool. The LT25i Tsubasa (not to be confused with the ST25i/Xperia U) has been caught by Tencent in AnTuTu and NenaMark2 tests, seemingly running the same mix of a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4, a 720p screen and Android 4.0 that we’ve seen in the upcoming Xperia T (LT30p). So what’s different? There’s rumors of in-cell touch to keep the display thin and vivid, but even the unverified source isn’t certain that it will become a reality. The crew at Xperia Blog also claims that there will be international LTE and HSPA+ models along with China- and Japan-specific editions. Assuming the details are at all consistent with the truth, having the Tsubasa arrive on the scene mostly hints that Sony might be readying a broader speed-up of its roster than we first thought.

Filed under: Cellphones

Sony LT25i Tsubasa pops up in benchmarks, may swell the high-speed Xperia ranks originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Aug 2012 18:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Tencent (translated), Xperia Blog | source AnTuTu (translated), NenaMark2 | Email this | Comments

Aug 10

13-inch Retina MacBook Pro benchmarks suggest incoming reveal

Posted in: Today's Chili

We have new evidence that Apple is indeed planning a 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display, as MacRumors has discovered a new set of Geekbench 2 results for such a machine. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Geekbench results for a 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display, as benchmarks for a laptop with the same name – “MacBookPro10,2″ – first appeared last month. This new set of benchmarks has quite a lot in common with the ones we saw last month, but there are a few differences to pay attention to.

The same Intel Core i7-3520M is still present in this new model, and it’s still clocked at 2.9 GHz. This time around, however, the amount of RAM in the 13-inch MacBook Pro has been boosted from 4GB to 8GB, which is more along the lines of what we would expect with the Core i7 present. Another interesting thing to note is that new benchmark shows Mac OS X 10.8.1 as the machine’s operating system. Apple is set to begin seeding that version of the OS to developers soon, but at the moment we don’t have a clear idea of when.

For the most part, however, the Geekbench results for this machine and the one that was spotted last month are very much the same. That’s reflected in the overall scores given to both – the results for this new model give a score of 7756, a mere 50 points below the model we saw last month. It would appear that Apple is planning a 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display, and it has locked down the specs it wants for the laptop.

Apple, for its part, has remained silent on the existence of this new MacBook. These new results reinforce the idea that it will be revealing the 13-inch laptop soon, however, so keep your fingers crossed. Perhaps we’ll get a reveal during that event Apple is planning for September 12? Keep it tuned right here to SlashGear for more information.

13-inch Retina MacBook Pro benchmarks suggest incoming reveal is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Aug 10

Sony LT25 “Tsubasa” tipped for Snapdragon S4, 720p display

Posted in: Today's Chili

It’s been a whole five months since Sony released its last flagship Android smartphone, so clearly it’s time for another. Benchmarks have emerged of the Sony LT25 “Tsubasa”, with soruces speaking to Xperia Blog indicating that it will be a smartphone heading to multiple carriers across the world. Both LTE and HSPA+ models of the phone will be offered, with specs said to include a 720p screen, a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, and LTE connectivity.

NeNaMark 2 results show that the handset features a 1196×720 display, with the 84 missing pixels taken up by the on screen buttons in Ice Cream Sandwich. An Adreno 225 GPU is also onboard, which means we should be looking at Qualcomm’s extremely popular Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 SoC.

AnTuTu indicates that the clock speed is 1.5Ghz, so Sony’s latest handset should feature the same silicon that HTC and Samsung are using for their phones in the United States. Several carrier variants are in the works too: the LT25c is said to be tailor made for China Telecom, the SO-01E will make an appearance on NTT DoCoMo, the SOL21 will feature on KDDI, and the LT25i and LT25i will be LTE and HSPA+ models for other international markets.

Sony has an event at IFA 2012 lined up, and we’d hazard a guess that it’s where we’ll see this new handset, along with the recently leaked Sony Xperia Tablet. Sony’s event starts on August 29th, and we’ll bring you coverage of all the goodies that Sony unveils on the big day.

[via Unwired View]

Sony LT25 “Tsubasa” tipped for Snapdragon S4, 720p display is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Aug 03

Rumored HTC One X+ with 1.7GHz Tegra 3 revealed in NenaMark report?

Posted in: Today's Chili

DNP Rumored HTC One X with 17GHz Tegra 3 revealed in NenaMark report

We’ve heard murmurings of it before, but they’ve been just that. Now we’ve got the first shred of hard evidence that the fabled HTC One X+ is actually real. Rumored to be heading to T-Mobile (or AT&T, depending on who you ask), this 1.7GHz super phone popped up over at NenaMark’s site, bearing the model number PM63100. Sadly, that internal moniker doesn’t really reveal much, but between that and the fact that it’s running Jelly Bean 4.1.1 we’re confident this isn’t something already on the market. And the reported resolution of 1280 x 720 combined with its high-speed Tegra 3 innards puts this squarely in flagship territory. What else do we know? Not a whole heck of a lot. But, as always, the truth will be revealed in time.

Filed under: Cellphones

Rumored HTC One X+ with 1.7GHz Tegra 3 revealed in NenaMark report? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Aug 2012 21:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Android and Me, Land of Droid | source NenaMark | Email this | Comments

Jul 30

MacBook Pro review (13-inch, mid-2012)

Posted in: Today's Chili

When the MacBook Pro with Retina display is in the game, Apple’s “regular” Pros may seem a bit like also-rans. After all, why would you choose them when you could get a brilliant 15-inch 2,880 x 1,800 IPS panel and a Core i7 Ivy Bridge processor? Well, price, for one thing. While we walked away from our Retina MBP review mighty impressed, that model starts at $2,199. The latest crop of Pros, meanwhile, keep the same pricing scheme as last year’s models ($1,199 and up), but step up to Intel’s third-generation Ivy Bridge processors. We took the entry-level 13-incher for a spin to get a feel for how the dual-core Core i5 CPU, 4GB of RAM and Intel HD Graphics 4000 stack up to the competition. Read on to see how it fared.

Gallery: MacBook Pro review (mid-2012, 13-inch)

Continue reading MacBook Pro review (13-inch, mid-2012)

Filed under: Laptops

MacBook Pro review (13-inch, mid-2012) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Jul 2012 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments

Jul 24

Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core tops the benchmark charts [Hands-on]

Posted in: Today's Chili

Qualcomm‘s been hard at work with their new quad-core chipset for mobile devices, and we’ve got one in our hands. Their brand new Snapdragon APQ8064 S4 Pro SoC packs quite the punch and we’ve just started taking it through it’s paces. Announced and available starting earlier today, this developer device isn’t for average users, but is a clear indication of what we can expect from Qualcomm later this year.

Without getting too technical here the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 developer tablet kit contains a quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM and is running on Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich. This 10.1-inch display running a 1366 x 768 resolution is going to be put through its paces but for now here’s a quick glance at a few of the popular Android benchmark apps. Quadrant blew through the roof posting numbers nearing 8000, and AnTuTu clearly was ahead of the other quad-core options available today.

Being a developer based platform this tablet isn’t something any consumer will see, but we’ll still give a quick input on performance. Usual tasks such as browsing the web, scrolling through webpages, heading to the Google Play Store and more are all extremely buttery smooth. Android 4.0 ICS is on board, instead of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, but performance is still quite swift.

With popular tests such as Quadrant and AnTuTu we clearly see some extremely impressive results. Boasting nearly 8k in Quadrant was plenty exciting, considering most devices are lucky to break 5000 — those of which are all running Qualdcomm’s dual-core S4 processor. Anything older isn’t quite as lucky, and that includes some other quad-core options on the market. Vellamo, Qualcomm’s own in-house benchmark suite that focuses on web browsing also takes charge and scores well with their new quad-core. Results aren’t as chart topping as the others, but certainly shows some real progress.

While this is just a MDP device geared at developers, it’s already clearly beating the Nexus 7, and Samsung’s Exynos 4 Quad powered Galaxy S III easily. These devices don’t give us an idea of battery life so that is still up in the air, but Qualcomm promises “all-day battery life.” For now take a quick glance at the results below. We’ll continue to update with additional screenshots and more tests, but Qualcomm has another winner here to top the charts. We can expect to see the new S4 pro quad-core arriving in devices later this year.