Review TechRadar: Phone and communications news 04-29-2014

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Spotify's dark new look and Your Music features hit Android today Apr 29th 2014, 14:15, by Kate Solomon Android users who have been looking jealously on as their iOS counterparts coo over the new-look Spotify app need envy no more: the revamped app is rolling out to Android tablets and phones starting today. Over the next few weeks, all Android users should receive the update which brings a sleek new look, improved Browse feature and Your Music to the Spotify party. Your Music lets you save songs and albums to your personal Spotify library rather than creating playlists to house them - the only downside is that the popular song starring feature is going the way of the dodo. Umming and ahhing over whether to subscribe? Check out our Spotify review to find out if it's worth it In Depth: Sony Xperia Z2 release date: where can I get it? Apr 29th 2014, 14:01, by John McCann The Sony Xperia Z2 was officially unveiled at MWC 2014 back in February and if its impressive 5.2-inch full HD display, quad-core processor, 20.7MP camera and dust- and waterproof chassis has taken your fancy you've come to the right place. We've we scouring the web for the best deals, as well as hunting down the official Sony Xperia Z2 release date. Sony is having a bit of trouble with the Xperia Z2, with the handset still yet to find its way into stores after the firm admitted it was having manufacturing issues. The Xperia Z2 is expected to arrive in stores during the first week of May, but that could always change. Some pre-orders have been fulfilled, but the Xperia Z2 certainly isn't easy to come by at the moment. Sony If you want to cut out the middle man of a retailer or network you can go direct to Sony and pre-order your Xperia Z2 in white or black right now. It will cost a wallet busting £599, and Sony is no longer offering a free wireless NFC speaker as part of the deal. You can get your mitts on the SIM-free Xperia Z2 for a little bit less elsewhere. Read on to find out more. In terms of the Xperia Z2 release date the Sony site states: "deliveries expected to start at beginning of May." Fingers crossed. Vodafone The big red network still has the phone on pre-order and quotes April 14 as the date it will start fulfilling April pre-orders. The handset isn't properly in stock yet, so there may be a wait if you order now. You can pick yourself up a free Sony Xperia Z2 if you commit to a two year 3G contract at £42 per month giving you unlimited calls and texts and 2GB of data. If you fancy harnessing the power of 4G you'll need to part with £47 per month for two years giving you unlimited calls and texts and a more palatable 5GB of data. There's no sign of any PAYG or SIM-free deals for now though - it's contract or nothing over at Vodafone. O2 The bubbly network is offering the Sony Xperia Z2 in black and purple, but it's still on pre-order for now with orders expected to be shipped "week commencing April 28." There are no PAYG or SIM-only options to speak of, and you'll have to stump up at least £19.99 upfront on a two year contract. If you part with £19.99 you'll pay £48 per month and in return you'll get unlimited calls and texts plus a generous 8GB of data. Fancy paying less every month? Pay £49.99 upfront and you'll be paying £38 every month for 2GB of data and unlimited texts and calls. EE EE is rather more vague with its delivery expectations of the Sony Xperia Z2, stating that you should get your handset "within 28 days" of pre-order. The recommended tariff on the EE site requires you to part with £59.99 upfront and pay £37.99 per month for two years. For that you get unlimited calls and texts as well as 4GB of 4G data. A better deal though appears to be the £9.99 upfront, £42.99 per month option giving you double speed 4G and 10GB of data. Carphone Warehouse Over at Carphone you can pre-order the Sony Xperia Z2 on contract or SIM-free for £549.95. It's currently offering contract deals on O2, EE (including Orange and T-Mobile) and Vodafone, with a two year deal on the latter giving you 3GB of 4G data each month for £42 or 5GB for £47. You'll have to pay £1 more each month on O2 for the same 5GB deal. The high-street retailer says it has "limited pre-launch stock" available for online orders, while in-store stock is expected to arrive on May 1. Phones 4U Phones 4U has stock for online orders with next day delivery if you're really in a rush you can get your hands on the Xperia Z2 in under 24 hours. Some stores may have stock, but it appears to be a pretty fluid situation for the time being. There are no Pay as you go or SIM-free options available, but in terms of contacts you can choose from either EE or Vodafone. If you're prepared to part with £49 upfront you can get unlimited calls and texts plus 4GB of data for £42.99 per month on EE, while Vodafone will give you a free handset and 3GB for £47 per month. The retailer is also offering a free 1 year Gourmet Society Membership and Sony Wireless Speaker with two year Xperia Z2 contracts. Online retailers Just want a SIM-free Sony Xperia Z2? Well Unlocked-Mobiles has it for £544.98 and is throwing in a speaker, noise cancelling headphones and a content package to draw you in. Interestingly Unlocked-Mobiles is now stating May 1 (it was originally April 1) as the Xperia Z2 release date. Clove also has the Xperia Z2 up for pre-order for just £540 with a similar speaker, noise cancelling headphones and a content package. In terms of a Xperia Z2 release date it's saying stock should ship from May 9. Over at Expansys you'll find a SIM-free asking price of £549.99, although there's no word on when you'll recieve the phone. Watch our Xperia Z2 video review: FutTv : m7uC9VDKA1wfB The new iPad generation is pensioners Apr 29th 2014, 12:16, by Patrick Goss The number of adults using tablets to go online has almost doubled in a year with 30% of UK adults using the devices. Ofcom's Adults' Media Use and Attitudes Report - an annual stats-fest - says that only 16% of adults used a tablet in the UK in 2012, but that rose hugely in 2013's figures. This figure is in line with the latest BBC iPlayer stats, which show that 29% of its requests now come from tablet - the same number as from PCs. Silver surfers Interestingly, one of the biggest growth areas for tablets is among the 65-74 range, which has grown from 5% to 17% in a year. Smartphone use was also on the up in 2013 - with six in ten adults now opting for connected phones, up 8% on the year before. And the stats don't stop there, with Ofcom revealing that 55% of us use our phones for emails and social networks, and three in ten use Skype or Facetime-like services to video chat. But TV on the go is not quite at the same level: just one in five people have watched a TV programme on their phone. Sony has just released its flagship tablet - find out what we thought in our Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet review Opinion: Apple should value people over patents when it comes to life-saving tech Apr 29th 2014, 12:00, by Stuart Houghton There is no getting away from it: using a phone while you are driving is dangerous. So it's good news that Apple has come up with tech to stop drivers using their phones at the wheel. Except for one thing: Apple has patented the technology. This is a system that could save lives, so why is Apple keeping it to itself? The trouble is with weaning people off using their phones in-car is that phones are very handy as well as dangerous. Some smartphone features are even explicitly designed to be useful during a journey - the turn-by-turn navigation offered by Apple, Google and Bing maps have rendered standalone GPS systems all but obsolete. A case could even be made for live traffic alerts actually improving road safety. It seems a shame to lose those advantages by stuffing your phone into the glove box but what can be done? Filed by Apple and granted last week, US Patent number 8,706,143 describes a "Driver handheld computing device lock-out" - in other words, a method for preventing the use of a smartphone or similar device while behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. In it, Apple suggests two potential methods for locking down phones. One requires modfication to the vehicle and could end up being implemented as part of Apple's CarPlay dashboard integration. The other just uses the phone's sensors very cleverly to ascertain that you are driving and lock you out of certain functions. Drive time This isn't a case of a company inventing a problem that it can magically solve with new technology. It is an offence in the UK and most US states to use a handheld smartphone or similar device while in charge of a vehicle and a quick glance at the statistics will show you why. A US report by the National Safety Council found that phones were a factor in a quarter of all car accidents. Another study of commercial, heavy-goods drivers found that using a phone can increase the risk of an accident by 23 times. A phone can be have a dramatic effect on your ability to concentrate. A 2012 study by the Institute of Advanced Motorists found that using a social networking app on a smartphone can reduce reaction times by 36.7%. Texting while driving was almost as bad, with reactions slowed by 36.4%. This is an astonishing figure when you note that smoking cannabis only slows reactions by 21% and drink-driving at the legal limit typically dulls reactions by 12.5%. Slower reflexes aren't the full story, either. Observational skills are also affected by using a phone, causing drivers to miss key events around their vehicle. Even staying in the central lane becomes difficult, with participants in the study finding that they would sometimes drift into other lanes slightly during the few seconds that they were distracted by a text or a tweet. Caring and sharing So, the problem is real and any attempt to solve it should be greeted warmly: what Apple is doing here, however, seems wrong. If the company really has found a way to keep the advantages of smartphone use in a vehicle while minimising the risk of drivers becoming distracted then that is a great thing, and it should be shared. But while the idea of Darwinian selection favouring those who buy Apple products no doubt appeals to Tim Cook, this is one issue that needs cross-industry support. If ever there was a case for Apple to put profits to one side and for the whole industry to work together, a lifesaving opportunity like this is it. If big players like Samsung, Nokia, Motorola and HTC could join with Apple to make this technology a standard rather than a nice-to-have. One impulse of altruism from Apple would mean safer roads for all of us, and that's why this patent is a wrong turn. Want to know about CarPlay? Here's the low-down on iOS in the car Sony Xperia Z2 Compact potentially spotted in leaked brochure Apr 29th 2014, 09:35, by James Rogerson Sony seems to be the only Android manufacturer that doesn't think that a smaller handset should necessarily come with mediocre internals. As a result its Xperia Z1 Compact was an impressive little phone, capable of going toe to toe with the flagships while packing a comparatively small display. Inevitably Sony was going to follow it up with an Xperia Z2 Compact and it looks like we might have our first glimpse at the specs courtesy of a brochure leaked to the Japanese blog ATRPG. According to the brochure the Z2 Compact (or Xperia A2 as it's listed in the brochure) will have a 4.3-inch display with a resolution of 720 x 1280. It's tipped to have a 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor and 2GB of RAM, along with 16GB of built in storage. Additionally the brochure lists it as having a plastic back, dimensions of 128 x 65 x 9.6mm and that it will come in grey black, white, lavender and orange. Déjà vu While those are some reasonably impressive specs they're not up to the standards of the full size Xperia Z2, which has a 2.3GHz Snapdragon 801 processor and 3GB of RAM. In fact the specs listed here are identical to those on the Xperia Z1 Compact which raises some questions about their legitimacy. If they are for real though then it's hard to see how this is much of an upgrade. Samsung also likes to shrink down its flagships. Samsung Galaxy K Zoom shoots for cameraphone glory Apr 29th 2014, 03:00, by John McCann The Samsung Galaxy K Zoom has arrived and it's just as barmy as its predecessor, the Galaxy S4 Zoom. In the quest for the perfect cameraphone Samsung has once again grabbed a compact snapper and mid-range mobile, fused them together and applied the "Zoom" tag to make it blatantly obvious what this device is all about. The Galaxy K Zoom sports a 20.7MP 3 BSI CMOS sensor with OIS (optical image stabilisation) and a telescopic 10x optical zoom on its rear. That optical zoom allows you to get closer to your subject without suffering the decrease in resolution you get with the traditional digital zooms on smartphones. This is Samsung's second generation of camera-come-smartphone and the Galaxy K Zoom has grown in size - it measures 137.5 x 70.8 x 16.6(20.2)mm - although that's party due to its bumped up specs. Not 1, not 2, but 6 cores! You now get a 4.8-inch 1280 x 720 display (up from 4.3 inches), while under the hood Samsung has equipped the Galaxy K Zoom with a hexa-core processor. The S4 Zoom came with a paltry dual-core chip. The hexa-core actually comprises of a 1.3GHz quad-core chip which is used during the heavy lifting processes such as image capture and editing, while a 1.7GHz dual-core chip takes over during more mundane tasks. You'll also find 2GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage Android 4.4 KitKat, 4G, NFC, a microSD slot and a 2430mAh battery crammed inside the Galaxy K Zoom. We're yet to see a Samsung Galaxy K Zoom release date or price, but the Korean firm has confirmed it will be coming to the UK and other markets. EE chief says Orange and T-Mobile 3G contracts are safe for now Apr 28th 2014, 20:43, by Chris Smith The leader of the UK's biggest 4G network, Everything Everywhere, says the firm has no plans to stop offering 3G data contracts despite the explosion of next-gen speeds. EE chief executive Olaf Swantee says the firm will continue to sell contracts and provide support for customers on its Orange and T-Mobile brands. He said: You still have the Orange and T-Mobile products, but we are one company with one network. All our employees work for EE, and across our call centres, our retail store and our websites, we are EE. "But we have millions of customers on Orange and T-Mobile accounts and we will continue to serve those and sell to them. We still see significant demand for Orange and T-Mobile products, but it's clear that 4G is growing, especially as more handsets are becoming 4G-enabled." Dramatic uptake increase The clarification from Swantee comes as EE once again saw a dramatic uptake of 4G contracts during the last three months. The firm acquired another 889,000 customers between January and the end of March, taking the total 4G subscriber base to 2.9 million. During that period, half of all new and renewing customers selected 4G contracts over the cheaper 3G alternative. With the tech continuing to boost speeds and roll out to new towns and cities across the UK, that number is likely to grow further in the coming months. EE assures current 3G subscribers that their service is safe for now, but how long will it be until those customers are ushered onto those more expensive monthly contracts? Plastic HTC One M8 Ace plots to take down the Samsung Galaxy S5 Apr 28th 2014, 19:52, by klee HTC made a name for itself producing some truly gorgeous all metal phones but soon it could release a plastic version of its current flagship device, the HTC One (M8). Engadget has it on good authority from one of its "reliable sources" that HTC's upcoming M8 Ace will feature a fully plastic unibody. The plastic shell aside, HTC supposedly will outfit its Ace almost exactly as the all-aluminum One (M8). The new phone will purportedly inherit the Taiwanese flagship's 5-inch screen and 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor. Attack on titans Supposedly, the new plastic version is being made specifically to undercut the Samsung Galaxy S5. Aside from the cost cutting plastic body, it's still uncertain if the original HTC One M8's Duo Camera feature will carry over to the M8 Ace. Earlier the phone was rumored to arrive for an unsubsidized price of CN¥3,000 (about $480/£285/AU$518), which would make it an extremely affordable device considering its top of the line specs. While the price looks enticing, up until now, we've only caught one blurred out glimpse of HTC's plastic handset courtesy of @evleaks. If anything, the handset looks a bit too similar to the Red HTC One (M8) that's coming exclusively to Verizon customers. If the M8 Ace truly becomes a reality, it would be an extremely attractive package even with the toy-like plastic body. Stay tuned to this space as we're sure to have more to report on this affordable handset. Never fear, the HTC One (M8) mini will probably still happen Nokia's 'Superman' may feature a 5MP front camera for fabulous selfies Apr 28th 2014, 18:25, by klee Nokia's latest string of phones have become notorious for their great cameras, and for its next Windows Phone 8.1 device, the Finnish company could introduce a 5MP selfie camera. According to The Verge, sources familiar with Microsoft's plans claim Nokia is currently developing a device codenamed "Superman." The phone has been described as a 4.7-inch device that will most notably come with a 5MP front facing camera. The handset will purportedly will drop towards the end of the year alongside the second Windows Phone 8 updates Microsoft has planned for this year. Months before, Microsoft will supposedly push the first update for its mobile OS in July. Two more in the back Additionally Microsoft is said to be working on two more handsets that will arrive this year. Supposedly, the "Goldfinger" should have been unveiled alongside Windows Phone 8.1 at Build 2014. However, the phone's reveal has been put on hold until Nokia can add Windows Phone 8.1 support for the device's unique "3D touch" in-air gesture controls. Going by old reports, the other device Nokia might have in store for us later this year would be a handset codenamed "Moneypenny," though we have not heard any more details on this device. Who is the fairest in the smartphone land? "Superman's" high-resolution front sensor is a major bump up from the 1MP typically seen on Nokia and many other smartphones. A few stand out handsets such as the Huawei Ascend G6 sits amongst the extremely shortlist of devices that come equipped with a 5MP front facing snapper. The 5MP camera may not make as big waves as the 41MP camera on the Lumia 1020 or the Lumia 925's still stunning 8MP shooter; but it's certainly a headliner that will make this "Superman" device more interesting than your drab everyday smartphone. The HTC One (M8) also has a 5MP front camera to make your selfies fabulous

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