Review TechRadar: Phone and communications news 08-13-2014

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Early view: Samsung Galaxy Alpha vs Samsung Galaxy S5 Aug 13th 2014, 13:00, by John McCann Alpha vs S5: design, screen, power and price The Samsung Galaxy Alpha may not share the 'S5' moniker of the Korean firm's flagship smartphone, but this new 'premium' device certainly has several similarities to the Samsung Galaxy S5. It's fair to say that the two handsets are aimed at slightly different markets, with the Galaxy S5 one of the top all-singing, all-dancing Android smartphones on the market, while the Galaxy Alpha's approach looks to be more refined, targeted specifically at the upcoming iPhone 6. Best Android phone - which should you buy? The tricky thing is, it now looks like Samsung has two top-end handsets - so which one should you choose? Read on to find out. Screen One of the biggest differences between the Samsung Galaxy Alpha and the Galaxy S5 is in the screen department. Early rumours pegged the Galaxy Alpha as potentially having a QHD screen, something to challenge the LG G3, but instead it's gone the other way and arrives with a 4.7-inch Super AMOLED display boasting a mediocre 1280 x 720 resolution. That doesn't quite match up to the 5.1-inch full HD Super AMOLED panel on the Galaxy S5, which can boast a pixel density of 432ppi to the Alpha's 313ppi. With both handset sporting the Super AMOLED tech you can expect colours to be vibrant on both, but the Galaxy S5 wins here. Design With a smaller 4.7-inch screen it's no surprise the Samsung Galaxy Alpha is the smaller of the two handsets at 132.4 x 65.5 x 6.7 mm - and that depth measurement is the really impressive figure here. The Alpha is super slim. In comparison the Galaxy S5 looks decidedly portly at 142 x 72.5 x 8.1mm, but in reality it isn't too overbearing, although the Alpha will fit more snugly into your palm. The Alpha also trumps the Galaxy S5 when it comes to weight - 115g to 145g - even though the Galaxy Alpha has a metal frame and the S5 sports a plastic body. Although the Alpha boasts a metal frame it still has a layer of soft touch polycarbonate on its rear, matching the dimpled effect on the back of the Galaxy S5 - which has, rather unfortunately, been compared to a sticking plaster in its look. Both the Galaxy Alpha and Galaxy S5 have heart rate monitors on the back, and a fingerprint scanner hidden under the home key on the front, but only the S5 is dust and water resistant. Price There's currently no word on how much the Samsung Galaxy Alpha will cost, but some rumours suggest it could well be around the same price as the Galaxy S5. That would place the Alpha right a the top of the smartphone market, where it will be outclassed in many departments by the range of flagship Android handsets currently available. We're keeping our fingers crossed for a slightly cheaper price tag. Power There's no shortage of power inside either of the handsets, with the Galaxy S5 packing a 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor and 2GB of RAM. Meanwhile on the Galaxy Alpha you'll also find 2GB of RAM inside two different variants - one of which houses an octa-core (quad-core 1.8GHz & quad-core 1.3GHz) processor and the other a 2.5GHz quad-core chip. We reckon that the likes of Europe and North American are likely to see the quad-core model, while the octa-core version is probably destined for Asia. Alpha vs S5: Camera, battery, connectivity Camera The Samsung Galaxy S5 just comes out on top in the camera department with a 16MP rear snapper trumping the 12MP offering on the back of the Galaxy Alpha. Both handsets sport 2.1MP front facing cameras, making video calls possible, while the rear lens can also capture UHD 4K video. In practice both handsets should be able to produce decent shots and there are plenty of tricks and features available to you including HDR, Dual Camera, Beauty Face, Selective Focus and Panorama modes. Battery You get a removable 2800mAh battery inside the Samsung Galaxy S5, which we've found can last more than a day on a single charge with moderate use. The Galaxy Alpha isn't quite so well equipped in this department, having to settle for a 1830mAh power pack - although you're not going to get a 6.7mm frame with a massive battery inside. The good news for the Alpha is that its 4.7-inch, lower resolution display will be less power hungry than the 5.1-inch full HD offering on the S5. That hopefully means it'll still be able to produce respectable battery life performance. Both handsets come with Samsung's new Ultra Power Saving Mode as part of the latest TouchWiz UI on Android KitKat, allowing you to eke out every last drop of power before your phone completely gives up the ghost. We found this mode performed well during our Galaxy S5 review, so we have high hopes of similar performance on the Galaxy Alpha. Connectivity As always with Samsung smartphones there's a whole host of connectivity options on both handsets - but there's also one big difference. The Samsung Galaxy Alpha doesn't come with a microSD slot, sticking you with the 32GB of internal storage. Meanwhile you do get a microSD slot on the Galaxy S5 allowing you to build on the 16GB or 32GB of internal storage with a memory card up to 128GB in size. This gives you much greater scope when it comes to photography, video recording, music, gaming and movie playback on the Galaxy S5 compared to the Galaxy Alpha. One place where the Galaxy Alpha does come out on top is its support for CAT 6 LTE, which can deliver 4G speeds up to 300Mbps to the handset - although many networks are not yet set up for this. The Galaxy S5 is also 4G enabled, but only to CAT 4 (which offers maximum speeds of 150Mpbs). Both handsets come with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, NFC and a microUSB port on their base. Quick verdict Unless you're desperate for a smaller form factor and a metal frame from your Samsung smartphone, there's little reason to pick the Galaxy Alpha over the Galaxy S5. The Galaxy S5 offers a much better screen, a stronger camera and expandable storage for what looks set to be pretty much the same price. Of course the Galaxy Alpha should look and feel a bit more premium, but the screen sounds a little disappointing. Updated: 50 best Android apps 2014 Aug 13th 2014, 12:14, by Gary Cutlack Best Android apps: 1-16 The Google Play app store has exploded in recent years, with a proliferation of apps that can cater to your every need. The problem is: there are just too many of them. Even with Editor's Picks, Featured and Best Selling, Top Paid and Top Free categories there to help you out with your downloading decision it's still a difficult task finding the best apps around. And that's why we made this list. Like you we want the best apps for our Android phones. The apps that are going to revolutionise functionality or, at the very least, offer something so great that it becomes one of the must-have apps that has to be downloaded whenever you get a new handset. The following apps will be constantly updated and are a mixture of paid and free ones and have been chosen by our Android experts. So, even if you do dip into actual cash for one of these apps, you are safe in the knowledge that it is a worthwhile purchase. 1. BBC Weather Free from the BBC, which arrived late to the weather app party in 2013 and delivered a completely stonking, triple-A meteorological experience. A variety of stylish widgets, long-range forecasts, location-aware settings and support for multiple locations make finding out how much it's raining everywhere a joy. 2. Google Now Launcher Free Exclusive to Nexus devices since launch, the Google Now Launcher has recently been opened up to owners of any Android phone running version 4.1 of the OS or higher. Install it and you get the weird experience that is having Google Now fill an entire Home screen, dumping a permanent collection of you cards to the left of the existing Home screen setup. Useful if you use Google Now. Not so much if you don't. 3. Mailbox Free Here's another way to manage your get-bigger-genitals and sex-herb spam emails. Mailbox is compatible with both Gmail and iCloud email accounts, pulling in your messages to a fantastically stylish interface from which you can manage emails in more of an SMS-like chat system. Swiping away, snoozing senders, reminders and more populate a packed feature list that put this among 2014's most impressive apps released thus far. 4. Yahoo News Digest Free Yahoo News Digest is a lovely little app that's the perfect antidote to the modern feeling of being flooded by constant news. This picks out the ten or so biggest local news stories of the day and presents them in a gorgeous layout with big photos and aggregated lists of links, additional sources and more. You even get a little animation and a fact of the day for being good and reading all your news. It makes finding and reading the day's headlines easy. 5. Shpock Free Despite the use of the US term "yard sale" in its listing, Shpock manages to offer plenty of local listings wherever you are in the world. Part eBay and part Pinterest, it's a pretty and simple way to offer used stuff for sale and find bargains nearby. Despite being relatively new there's still stacks of stuff on it already, so it would appear to have reached critical mass and has its own active community. 6. Twitter Free Another must-have for those who want to keep up to date with what's going on in the world in 140 characters or fewer. Now that Twitter has put the shackles on most of its alternatives, the official app is one of the best to use, with functionality so simple anyone can use it - and seeing some of the hashtags that trend, it looks like anyone does. 7. Vine Free The movie-making sensation took a little while to appear on Android, then took a while for the numerous bugs to disappear – but now it's all good. It's a simple recording/stop-motion/animation tool, letting you shoot live video on your phone and share it via social networks. The app is also the best way of browsing Vines from others, as the categories and pages mean you can leaf through it like telly, favouriting users. 8. Dropbox Free Pretty much essential for anyone juggling a work PC, home PC, laptop, tablet, phone and internet fridge, Dropbox's key power lies in letting you access any files anywhere. It can also automatically upload photos taken on your phone to your account, meaning that, after a bit of uploading and downloading, all your shots are *right there* on your desktop without any tedious cable connecting. 9. Speedtest Free Get angry about how slow your internet is. Get smug about how fast your internet is. Spy on the network speeds of your friends and neighbours. If one of your frequent conversations with your mates is how fast your internet currently is, then Speedtest is for you. You can do unlimited broadband up/down speed tests on any boring weekday evening. 10. eBay Free The app itself isn't what you'd call attractive, but eBay lets you browse, watch items and buy stuff, integrating a Paypal sign-in for quick getting of things. Better still, now Android phones all have immense cameras on them, it's a doddle to sell items straight through the app - take a photo, upload it, have most of the listing data pre-filled for you. The app is better as a selling tool than the desktop site, in fact. 11. Feedly Free If you felt a bit lost and disconnected from the News Borg when Google shut down its Reader RSS aggregator, Feedly will help. It's a more glamorous and swishy-slidy way of getting data from RSS feeds, with numerous ways of displaying site snippets and navigating through your unread pile of possibly interesting things. 12. BBC iPlayer Free Took some time for the BBC to gradually get BBC iPlayer to full parity with the iOS release, but it's just about there now for the vast majority of popular Android models. A piecemeal approach to introducing offline download support has annoyed some users, but it remains a superb way of using your phone as a modern portable telly for the bedroom, as long as your broadband's up to the task. 13. Carbon Free The official Twitter app is a rather weird, ever-changing affair, that often introduces more annoyances and quirks with each new redesign. So best avoid it and enjoy the thrills of third-party tweet app Carbon, which, with its recent 2.0 update, enhanced an already posh experience with new gesture input, more hardcore shortcuts and a handy widget. 14. Handcent SMS Free If you wish to rage against Google's Hangouts enforcement push and Facebook Messenger, get Handcent SMS. It's one of the most popular alternative SMS apps, with the recent 6.0 update arriving with an all-new, on-message, late-2014-season, flat graphic design update. It's always been an ugly but reliable workhorse for hardcore texters, now it's a really pretty workhorse for those who get anywhere near hitting their 5,000-a-month SMS usage limits. 15. WhatsApp Free (for the first year) The instant messaging behemoth is an essential Android install, especially if you can convince the people you message most frequently to use it too. The concept is simple - it takes over text messaging on your mobile, routing messages through any Wi-Fi connection instead. Which means no more SMS allowances, no size restrictions, plus images are sent at a decent resolution. 16. Motorola Gallery Free Of slightly niche appeal given that it's limited to users of the Moto X, some US-only DROID phones and the Moto G, but with the latter emerging as one of the world's most popular mobiles, that's quite a few people. Motorola Gallery offers a completely different way of sorting and viewing your photos, offering sorting by date, folder or album, with a fullscreen slideshow option for entertaining/boring the relatives with your adventures. It's quite pretty, akin to Sony's box-based Xperia gallery app. Best Android apps: 17-33 17. Amazon Appstore Free It's a bit of a fuss to get Amazon Appstore on your phone as Google's not too keen on rival app stores popping up on Google Play, but it's worth doing. Mainly for the freeloading aspect, as Amazon sticks up a paid-for app for free every day. Most are a bit rubbish, but some properly decent paid apps do occasionally pop up. Add it to your daily trawl, just in case. 18. Google Keep Free Google's so proud of its Google Keep, its cross-platform note-taking tool that it's recently started pre-loading it as part of the core Android feature set. It comes with a stylish widget, integrates voice dictation for those Alan Partridge moments of creative inspiration, plus if you use Keep on a Chromebook it seamlessly syncs with mobile notes saved there. A great way of coordinating mobile and laptop lives. 19. Spotify Free (premium version needs a subscription) No, wait. it is free. Sort of. Spotify now comes with a stipped-down playlist-cum-radio combo for users who don't pay for the service but still want to use it on mobile, accompanied by a swish new tablet interface that has much more in common with the free desktop browser player. So yes, it's free. hobbled a bit, but free. 20. Unclouded Free Unclouded is a simple and very stylish way of integrating Google and Dropbox cloud services, resulting in one single app that lets you see what stuff you've got backed up to each service. It makes it easy to pull out file duplicates and see breakdowns of the percentages used up by each folder. It's not groundbreaking, but it is a nicely designed thing and a pleasure to use. 21. Airbnb Free A posh B&B listings service designed specifically around mobile app use, the selling point of Airbnb is that it personalises the hosts, so if you really want to stay in Glasgow with a cheery looking alternative lifestyle man called Dave snoring in the next room, it's ideal. 22. DashClock Widget Free DashClock Widget is a stonking addition to any Android phone running version 4.2 of Google's code or higher, as it adds new active plugins to the lock screen. This means your lock screen can have a torch button, the weather, unread text messages and more, plus there's a development community out there building new extra features all the time. 23. Instagram Free One of those services you might as well start using because everyone's using it. The Instagram Android app took a while to appear, but is now live, looking good and offers a simple way of taking and editing your square photographs of lunch, sunsets, cats etc. Plus it now has fashionable effect tilt shift for making things look small. Not that that's ever something we've wanted. Quite the opposite, usually. 24. Kindle Free Amazon's Kindle app connects seamlessly with its online book shop services, letting account holders send books to the app, sync existing libraries via the cloud, and access books across the many Android phones and tablets people have kicking about the place these days. Of course there's also a shop in it, as flogging you books is the reason Amazon is offering this comprehensive cloud reader for free. 25. Tinder Free Tinder is a… how do we put this? It's a dating app, to put it nicely, one that uses your Facebook account (or a hurriedly created secondary one) and location details to generate a list of other users of the app that are also bored, probably drunk, and nearby. You then get a list of others to swipe through, starring any you like the look of. It's not a deep process. Should any of them star you back, you're able to start chatting and… maybe more. So they say, anyway. I've never used it. 26. Endomodo PRO £1.99 ($4.99, $AU3.68) The popular sports tracker covers every sport you can think of apart from curling, managing to track your runs, rides, kayaking journeys, hill walks and other excursions with ease. The paid Endomodo PRO unlocks more stats and a handy terrain chart, letting you see how steep the hard parts were – and providing a useful excuse for poor performance. 27. SwiftKey Keyboard £2.99 ($3.99, $AU5.53) This one pioneered the concept of the alternative keyboard, with SwiftKey the first to offer to 'learn' your writing style and attempt to predict your next word. The hope being that, with practice, it'll know what phrases you commonly use and might save you quite a bit of fuss in typing a simple message to a friend. 28. Google Camera Free Google's Nexus line of phones have traditionally been dogged by the unfathomably awful stock camera apps that ship with Android, but that's now changed - a bit - with this. Google Camera is a standalone camera app that's available for users of all Android models, offering a simple interface, background blur effects and… not very much more. It actually has fewer features than the older official Android app, but it's tidy and fast, so the hope is it'll quickly evolve into the premiere mobile photo tool. 29. Swype Keyboard £2.42 ($3.99, $AU4.48) As rival SwiftKey invented the concept of word prediction, so Swype did the same for gesture input. The concept is simple - you write "hello" by pressing the H, then swiping a line through E, L and O. Hopefully, if you were accurate enough, the software guesses this right and you've just written a word easy-style. A similar system has been adopted within newer versions of Android, but if you have an older phone this gets you into the line-writing fun, too. 30. Plex £2.98 ($4.99, $AU5.50) The idea behind Plex is that it assimilates your existing media collection and serves it up, through one standard interface, via the cloud. It's a bit of a struggle to get going as you need a free account on Plex's servers to access your stuff, but once it's all up and running it offers streaming and transcoding of files, meaning everything ought to play everywhere. Supports Chromecast too, if you've bought into Google's own media-managing dream. 31. Camera Zoom FX £1.79 ($2.99, $AU3.25) A complete replacement camera app for your phone or tablet, Camera Zoom FX is great at layering on the extra options and adding features like burst mode, custom shutter buttons, overlays and a horizon level to phones that ship with more basic camera apps. It's worth the price alone for the sound activated shooting mode, an infinitely better option than running around and hoping you get your smile right in time for the self timer. And once you're done, it has heaps of filters to apply. 32. Apex Launcher Pro £2.49 ($3.99, $AU4.50) The thing a lot of enthusiasts love about Android is the ability to switch to a new launcher. In layman's terms, this means you can whack an entire new frontend on your phone, replacing the user interface with an entirely custom skin. Apex Launcher's one of the oldest and most highly thought of, using the default Android look as a base for numerous tweaks and additions. It's free to try, with the separate Apex Launcher Pro key unlocking the full version. 33. Chromecast Free Chromecast, Google's companion for its physical dongle, is essential if you're a user of its HDMI media streamer, letting connected life living futurists beam their phone contents to their TV using nothing but the air we breathe as a cable. This app also solves the problem of how you manage Chromecast's options, as the little HDMI dongle obviously has no screen or buttons of its own. The wireless dream is even compatible with older devices stuck on version 2.3 of Google's OS, resurrecting any ancient low-spec tablets you may have stuck in the loft back in 2012. Best Android apps: 34-50 34. Runtastic PRO £4.99 ($4.99, $AU9.25) A hefty price, but what cost you not dying of obesity at age 52? That fitness promise is what you pay for here, with the RunTastic Pro. It is able to map you, track you, automatically cheer you on, generate live feedback and more, also covering interval training and letting users create their own regular routes to attack again and again. Serious stuff for competitive people. 35. Tasker £2.99 ($2.99, $AU5.53) Tasker is one of the first, and best, task managers for Android. It does it all. Turns stuff on or off depending on location, manages multiple schedules for changing phone state depending on the time of day, even letting users have their phone automatically reply to text messages if it's set to a quiet state. It's complex, vast, and you'll wonder how you lived without it. 36. Photoshop Touch for Phone £2.99 ($4.99, $AU5.53) Adobe's official Android imaging app is streets ahead of the competition in terms of features. Photoshop Touch for Phone allows arty types manage layered PSD documents on the go, import fill textures live from the camera, with cloud support for saving images on your phone - then continuing the editing process on desktop. Or on your tablet. Or on your other phone. 37. Pocket Free Hands down the best offline reader app on the market, Pocket (formerly Read It Later) offers up a simple and effective way to read long form articles without the need of a web connection. A recent update has made the app feel more like a website, complete with carousel, which makes finding older articles a little easier. Couple this with a regular newsletter updating you on decent reads to Pocket and it's simply a brilliant app. 38. TuneIn Radio Pro £2.40 ($3.99, $AU4.40) Forget the physical side of radios, the best way to listen to random tunes and the occasional bit of travel news is online. TuneIn Radio is the most comprehensive internet radio player by far, offering masses of stations, favourite lists, and, in this paid upgrade, the ability to record direct off the radio. 39. Pocket Casts £2.70 ($3.99, $AU5.00) The podcast is another option when it comes to being entertained through your ears, with the stylish Pocket Casts one of the newest listening apps to hit Android. It comes with simple cloud syncing of your favourite subscriptions, variable speed playback for skipping the boring bits, themes auto downloads and… everything. 40. SoundHound £3.99 ($4.99, $AU7.39) SoundHound is best described as a companion app for music, letting users ID tracks by recording a clip and also attempting to guess the names of songs you sing and hum to it. It can also stream in lyrics, sell you stuff and bring in news feeds covering artists you like, making it a really swish hub for people who are 'into' music. 41. Jamie's 20 Minute Meals £4.99, ($7.69, $AU9.25) Bosh this beauty on your phone, right, yeah? Jamie's 20 Minute Meals is a bit of money, but there are 65 recipes, photographs so you don't get the aubergines and cucumbers mixed up, plus a guarantee that you can have something a bit fancier than cheese on toast for dinner in 20 minutes. As long as you've got more things than cheese in your fridge to start with. 42. Press £1.93 ($2.99, $AU3.50) Press is a super-stylish RSS reader, one that comes with support for several of the services that sprang up to replace the sadly departed Google Reader. Import your stuff from Feedly, Feedbin and others, to see it presented in a huge variety of layout options. Offline support, background syncing and the ability to save articles to Instapaper and Pocket make it a superb hub for serious news fans. 43. gReader Pro £3.19 ($4.69, $AU5.95) A more traditional method of scouring web site RSS feeds, gReader successfully updates the simplistic style of Google's Reader, compete with a custom layout for reading on tablets, offline reading, gesture actions, a widget and much more. It's properly jam-packed with ways to stare at endlessly updating lists of words. 44. CrossDJ £3.29 ($4.99, $AU5.80) Describes itself as a 'pro' DJ app for people who enjoy nodding along and pumping their fists in the air while someone else's record plays. Cross DJ comes with specialist features such as BPM tracking, pitch shifting and a split audio output for previewing tracks before they're mixed in, with filter effects in here too for adding a bit more oomph to whatever party you're ruining with your rubbish music. 45. Evernote Free Evernote is the original and the best note-taking app. It allows you save ideas for that book you are always nearly about to write, syncs across devices and you can also create to-do lists, record voice reminders and capture photos straight from the app. It's a seamless way to organise your probably very messy life. 46. Reddit Sync Pro £1.69 ($2.00, $AU3.00) That internet site you may have heard about, the one that does good things, interesting things and bad things, doesn't have an official app. But it does have heaps of unofficial ones, including Reddit Sync Pro that has the killer ability to sync threads for offline access. Never miss a celebrity pandering to the masses to promote a film or book again. 47. Facebook Messenger Free It actually pains us to put this app into our top 50 but, because of Facebook's rather snide antics, it is a must-have app. That is, in the sense you need to have it to use Facebook Messenger on your phone. Yes it's annoying, yes there are lots of scare stories about what the app can read on your device (ignore those) and yes it's cynical but because of Facebook's popularity this will stay in the top 10 of downloaded apps for some time to come. 48. Snapchat Free Snapchat is the current darling of the social media world, allowing users to send pictures that will eventually disappear and leave no trace. This aspect of the app has meant that it has been given a rather porny moniker but there is much more to the app and this is why it is currently bigger than Twitter in terms of users. 49. Facebook Free It used to be that the Android version of Facebook was something of a sluggish oddity, but the app has been remade from the ground up and is now a fairly sleek way to stay in contact with your Facebook mates. The spinoff of Messenger into another app is disappointing but in some ways it means that the main app is a little less cluttered with conversations. 50. DSLR Controller £5.94 ($7.99, $AU11.09) Got a posh camera to go with your posh phone? Get a load of you. If so, you may as well blow a further bit of cash on the DSLR Controller, a beta but still fully functional method of controlling a Canon EOS camera from an Android device. It allows masses of options to be configured remotely, altering the focus and accessing image previews, plus control of the aperture, ISO and pretty much everything Canon sticks in its high-end cameras. Best Android apps: even more choice And there was you thinking that we were finished. There are a plethora of apps for Android that we just could fit into our top 50. That's because there's an app for pretty much everything these days, and it's easy to spend hours browsing the selection in the Google Play Store. That can be a downside as it can be a problem to separate the wheat from the chaff. That's why we're here. We've tirelessly trawled Google Play looking for the best downloads on offer - many of them are free but if there are apps that we think are worth the money we've included those, too. We've got alternative browsers, keyboards and music players, brilliant free games, apps for kids and a whole lot more. Read on for links to all of our roundups. 90 best free Android apps Most of the good stuff on Android is free, thanks to the work of developers who do it for love alone. From social networking apps to ones to inspire you with new ideas at work and at home, these 90 free Android apps should be any Android owner's installs... Read 90 best free Android apps 90 best free Android games We've worked our way through a whole load of Android games to reveal the ones you should download to your phone or tablet, and these are our picks. Read 90 best free Android games 10 best alternative Android apps Even if you're using a phone layered down with a custom user interface like Sense or TouchWiz, there are many alternatives to your pre-installed tools and settings. These are our 10 favourite alternate Android apps. Read 10 best alternative Android apps 10 best free Android apps for kids There are plenty of child-friendly apps in the Android Market. From educational apps to fun apps, we've rounded up 10 your kids will love. Read 10 best free Android apps for kids 10 best office apps for Android Android has a wealth of productivity tools at its disposal, ranging from free and simple text editors and "to do" lists up to impressively feature-packed and rather costly suites of document management apps that promise PowerPoint and Excel editing on your mobile. Read 10 best office apps for Android Best Android browsers We wouldn't recommend sticking with Internet Explorer on a PC unless you've tried out some of the alternatives, and you're doing yourself no favours if you've never ventured beyond the stock Android browser for getting around the web. We've listed eight of our favourites below. Read Best Android browser: 8 compared for speed and features Best Android keyboards There's an abundance of Android keyboards on the Play Store, and you can change them until you find one you like. With this in mind, we've selected nine of the best Android keyboards available . Read 9 best Android keyboard apps reviewed and rated Best Android music players The best way to unify your Android music player experience is to use one of the many standalone apps out there, all of which offer their own take on how to best make your MP3 collection sing out of your phone. Here are 10 of the best ways to get your mobile managing your tunes today. Read 10 best Android music players Best Android movie players If you have a relatively modern handset with a fast processor, the following media apps will spice up Google's rather boring movie playback options and widen your options when it comes to video viewing. Read 10 best Android movie player apps Early view: Samsung Galaxy Alpha vs Galaxy S5 Mini vs iPhone 5S vs Xperia Z1 Compact Aug 13th 2014, 11:32, by Simon Hill Samsung Galaxy Alpha vs the world Apple has long argued for the merits of a smartphone you can use one-handed, that's why the iPhone 5S grew taller, but not wider. The idea of a scaled down flagship isn't alien to the big Android OEMs, but Sony is the only one so far to avoid scaling down the specs when it shrank the phone, which is why the Xperia Z1 Compact is the current king of smaller Android smartphones. But wait, what's this? A premium design in a small body with cutting edge specs? Samsung has been listening and it's trying to blow away the compact competition, including its own Galaxy S5 Mini, with the Samsung Galaxy Alpha. Does it have what it takes to be the leader in the category of mini hyperphones? Let's take a look. Design Samsung is seriously excited about the design of the Galaxy Alpha. The fact that it's less than 7mm thick is impressive, but not a major surprise, what will raise eyebrows is the "high-quality metal frame and luxury look and feel." From the front it's clearly a member of the Galaxy family, but that metal frame is solid, not plastic, and the soft matte finish echoes the mottled patterning of the S5, but looks a touch classier. It measures 132.4 x 66.5 x 6.7mm and weighs just 114g. It's a tiny touch bigger than the S5 Mini which is 131.1 x 64.8 x 9.1mm and 120g, but much slimmer and slightly lighter, despite the new materials. The Xperia Z1 Compact is much heavier at 137g, probably because of the glass back, but it's smaller, if a little fatter at 127 x 64.9 x 9.5mm. The chamfered edges and metal frame are going to invite obvious comparisons with the iPhone 5S which is significantly smaller, but not quite as svelte and only a tiny bit lighter at 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6mm and 112g. Screen Disappointingly, we're looking at a 4.7-inch Super AMOLED display in the Alpha with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. This accounts for the larger height and width than its competitors, but still isn't the Full HD you'd be expecting on a high-end phone like this. In comparison, the Z1 Compact has a 4.3-inch display, the S5 Mini has a 4.5-inch screen, and the iPhone 5S has a 4-inch area to poke at. With the same resolution as the Alpha, but a smaller screen, the S5 Mini claims a higher pixel density at 326ppi, which is identical to the pixel density in the iPhone 5S. The Xperia Z1 Compact is the clear winner here with a ppi of 342, but you're unlikely to notice much of a difference given the smaller screen size. Power This is where Samsung has economized in its more diminutive phones in the past; for example the S5 Mini has a 1.4GHz quad-core with 1.5GB of RAM. Not so this time, as the Alpha is going to be offered in octa-core (1.8GHz and 1.3GHz) and 2.5GHz quad-core variants with 2GB of RAM. That's enough to eclipse the 2.2GHz quad-core processor in the Z1 Compact, also backed by 2GB and it blows the 1.3GHz dual-core iPhone 5S with a paltry 1GB of RAM out of the water. We're already hearing that the Alpha beats the S5 and HTC One M8 in benchmark tests, so while the screen sharpness is a let-down, the internals certainly aren't. Camera You'll find a 12MP main camera in the Galaxy Alpha and a 2.1MP front-facing camera. It also boasts a good range of photography features including real-time HD, making it close to rivalling the Galaxy S5 in terms of specs, although not quite. The S5 Mini has a less impressive 8MP and 2.1MP combo, but the Xperia Z1 Compact wins the spec race with a 20.7MP main camera supported by a 2MP front-facing camera. The iPhone 5S lags way behind on paper in this category with an 8MP main camera and a 1.2MP front-facing shooter, but that doesn't take into account the real world performance, which has seen Apple's smartphone become one of the leading cameras on planet Earth due to its simplicity of use. They all have an LED flash and a range of software enhancements. The Alpha sounds decent, but we'll need a hands-on to do a meaningful comparison for the camera. Battery We find something of a surprise in the battery department. The Alpha has a relatively small 1,860mAh battery when compared to the 2,100mAh battery in the S5 Mini and the 2,300mAh battery in the Z1 Compact. The iPhone 5S lags behind here too, with a 1,560mAh, but once again it's all about the real-world performance. With the biggest screen of the bunch, you could reasonably expect the Alpha to be packing a bit more power, but this could be one of the ways Samsung was able to make it so slim. Will that hurt it in the real world? Experience would suggest that it would, especially with the more powerful version of the phone. Samsung's clearly making an effort to aim this phone at those that care about design, but sadly it looks like it's at the expense of battery life. Additional features Naturally the Alpha comes with Samsung's full menu of apps, extra software features, and compatibility with its wearables range. It also inherits the fingerprint scanner and heart rate monitor from the S5, both of which are also present in the S5 Mini too. The heart rate monitor is in a different location than on the S5 though, which may present issues plugging your finger onto it. It lacks a micro SD card slot, but there is 32GB of internal storage. Unfortunately the dust and water resistance in the Z1 Compact (IP55/58) and the S5 Mini (IP67) are absent in the new Galaxy Alpha, as they are on the iPhone 5S. Do not throw that down the toilet. Price Samsung hasn't announced the pricing for the Alpha yet, but we won't be surprised if it's close to the £550 that a SIM-free iPhone 5S will cost you. It's a weird one, as it seems to be a cut-down version of the Galaxy S5 in some respects (camera, screen and battery for example) so will consumers be ready to pay more for metal when that can be had elsewhere for less? The Xperia Z1 Compact is significantly cheaper at £350 off-contract and the S5 Mini is a just a touch more than that at around £380. Early verdict It's encouraging to see Samsung follow Sony's lead in the power department by matching flagship processor performance in the Alpha. The premium design and svelte form factor are also a welcome departure. But, we can't help being disappointed at the lack of water resistance and surprised by the omission of a micro SD card slot - and that battery size is a real worry. Everything else looks like par for the course, but we'll have to see how the camera and battery perform in the wild before making a real judgment. The Galaxy Alpha's prospects of success depend heavily on Samsung's pricing, and with a release date set for September, it won't be long before we get the chance to give it a go in the real world. Are microSD slots really needed any more? Samsung Galaxy Alpha launches with iPhone 6 in its sights Aug 13th 2014, 09:13, by John McCann The Samsung Galaxy Alpha is finally here - a premium Galaxy smartphone that shares some similarities to the flagship Galaxy S5 while also ploughing its own furrow. It's the metal framed chassis which Samsung is putting the main emphasis on here, as it looks to bring a higher class look and feel to the handset. The Galaxy Alpha won't be competing with the likes of the HTC One M8 or Sony Xperia Z2 however - the 4.7-inch, Super AMOLED 720p display links this particular handset more closely with the upcoming iPhone 6. A super slim, 6.7mm body wrapped in a band of metal is reminiscent of Apple's design, although Samsung's new soft touch, dimpled polycarbonate rear still sneaks its way onto the back of the device. While the screen may not live up to the full HD offerings we're now accustomed to, the octa-core (quad 1.8GHz + quad 1.3GHz), 2.5GHz quad-core (depending on which country you're in) processor and 2GB of RAM is certainly up there with the best of them. Finger scannin' good The Galaxy Alpha also inherits the fingerprint scanner under the home key and the heart rate monitor on the rear from the Galaxy S5, but there are no water or dust resistant features in play here. Another area that takes a bit of a spec hit is the camera, with a 12MP snapper adorning the rear, while on the front you'll find a 2.1MP offering. In terms of storage there's 32GB of internal space to play with, but in an interesting twist Samsung has decided not to put a microSD slot into the Galaxy Alpha. There doesn't appear to a SIM tray round the outside of the handset, so we're still hopeful the rear cover will come off providing access to that and the 1860mAh battery - although we'll have to wait for confirmation. The Samsung Galaxy Alpha release date is set for the start of September and it will be available in Charcoal Black, Dazzling White, Frosted Gold, Sleek Silver and Scuba Blue, although we currently have no word on price. Samsung Galaxy S5 review HTC is giving its apps to rival Android phones, starting with Zoe this week Aug 13th 2014, 08:52, by Hugh Langley Anyone who's used a HTC phone will be familiar with the tailor-made Android skins and apps that come loaded the handset, but now the company wants to push them out into the wider Android landscape. According to Recode, HTC has a 260-people-strong unit called HTC Creative Labs, which is working to develop apps for other Android phones. Its first task is to create an Android-friendly version of Zoe, the HTC app that is able to compile 16 pictures or videos into a neat little highlight video - something that HTC said would happen when it launched the M8. That will arrive this week, but only for high-end handsets running Android 4.4. Otherr apps, including Blinkfeed, are expected to follow down the line. Stunning design, loads of power, some big upgrades - HTC One M8 review Samsung's VR headset appears in the flesh, look for it next to the Note 4 Aug 12th 2014, 23:38, by Michelle Fitzsimmons We've seen it leak countless times, but we've never actually seen what Samsung's VR headset looks like in the flesh. That seemingly changes today as an image of the set-up was acquired by The Verge. The site reported Samsung plans to unveil the headset codenamed "Project Moonlight" during its September 3 pre-IFA event. It's there Samsung is also expected to announce the Galaxy Note 4. The headset, which may be dubbed Gear VR at the time of release, looks to employ a smartphone as its display, much like Google's Cardboard. Its lenses are capable of turning the flat on-screen imagery into a 3D wonderland, or so it would seem. Calling Oculus Oculus had been reported as involved in Samsung's VR project, but how much the Rift-maker partook in developing the headset shown here or what its involvement in the final product is like isn't known. The phone shown alongside the goggles here looks to be a Galaxy S5, however if Samsung announces Project Moonlight and the Note 4 at the same event, you can bet there will be some synergy between the two. Besides a panel that presumably holds the phone onto the headset, Samsung's VR gear looks to have a focus dial and possibly a micro USB connection to tether to the handset. There's also a gamepad in the leak, one we assume controls the action happening in front of a user's face. TechRadar will be on hand at Samsung's events September 3 in New York and Berlin, so stay tuned for what Sammy reveals. There's plenty to look forward to at IFA 2014! Opinion: OnePlus women-only photo contest shows we still have a long way to go Aug 12th 2014, 22:46, by Michelle Fitzsimmons I'm a woman, and I like technology. Sadly, I'm all too used to moments of ignorance and sexism as displayed by a now pulled OnePlus contest. If you haven't already heard, OnePlus launched a contest to commemorate reaching 200,000 message board members in which only women – or "ladies" as we're referred to like a Tuesday night cover charge special – were asked to submit a photo of themselves with the OnePlus logo drawn on a piece of paper or themselves. The 50 photos that garnered the most "likes" on the predominately male OnePlus forums would earn the entrants a T-shirt. If there were at least 500 entries, OnePlus would do the gentlemanly thing and invite its "favorite photo" to buy a One smartphone. Reaction on Twitter was decidedly negative. "This is disgusting," one person wrote. "You folks are gross," another chimed in. "Any interest in buying your phone just melted away." It goes on like this, and it's worth noting many of the Twitter users expressing disgust over the contest and saying they're taking their business elsewhere are male. One "lady" wrote, "Here's my photo. Not sure I'm following the rules, but I think it conveys my message." Her entry is below: Sarah Ditum wrote a great op-ed on the consequences of excluding women in tech, and one of my favorite lines from her April piece is this: "The problem is, the industry appears to carry on under the impression that it's a perfect microcosm of the rest of the world, and then gets surprised every time it's reminded otherwise." It appears that's what we're living out right now; some folks at OnePlus thought this was completely OK to do and saw nothing wrong with it … until the internet (a.k.a. the world) reminded them otherwise. Such is the beauty of direct engagement and social media – people can instantly call you out when you do wrong. It's important to point out this contest also excluded men, which isn't a good thing either. A OnePlus administrator posted an apology after hours of silence, saying the company understood "our contest was in bad taste," but the damage seems apparent. Will a promising company and well-reviewed phone be undone by a moment of sheer stupidity? As some tweets attest to, business is already walking out the door. We're here, and we're only getting stronger We're reminded continually that the tech world suffers from a dearth of diversity and female employees. Apple is only the latest company to release a diversity report that shows it's really not diverse at all. Just 30% of its workforce is female and 55% of its employees are white. Women are most highly employed in non-tech jobs. I can't speak definitely to the workforce make-up of OnePlus. A photo on the OnePlus website's About Us section shows a group that includes women, but I've asked the company how many women they employ and what their roles are. I'm nothing new or a fluke; I know a number of women, many of whom work at Future, TechRadar's publishing company, who breathe their iPhones, can build their own PCs and can't wait for Mass Effect 4 to come out. And yet women who like tech are treated like we don't exist or, almost worst, like we would be willing to participate in a photo contest where people vote on our image so we can buy a device. It's degrading, disgusting and infuriating. The world of technology and gaming and everything that's packaged along with it has always been about inclusion. It welcomes, or at least believes it welcomes, outsiders - people who don't feel they fit in, people with different ideas than mainstream society and people who want to do and experience the extraordinary not prescribed by the rest of the world. Yet, as has been written about ad nauseam and company diversity reports continue to show, women are sorely missing from tech. So what's the solution? Encourage girls and women to pursue their interests in technology. Educate them and hire them. Open up seats in positions of power where, if something like this comes across their desk, they can say, "No." I'd personally say, "Oh hell no!" but we all of our different management styles. There are programs like Girls Who Code, TechWomen, Women Techmakers and WeTech that seek to support girls and women in technology careers. More and more conference panels are focusing on women in tech and gaming. Women like Meg Whitman, Ginni Rometty, Marissa Mayer and Sheryl Sandberg are breaking through the boys club of executive positions at tech companies. This is all fantastic, but we're kidding ourselves if we think this is enough, especially when incidents like today's happen. Quick anecdote: I approached Sandberg at Facebook's developers conference earlier this year to ask for a photo and talk women in tech with her. She was taking pictures with any attendee who asked, but when I did she said, "Of course! Especially for another woman." She is acutely aware our numbers in this sector are far too small. My ideas have been said in one form or another elsewhere before. I know I'm not adding anything revolutionary to the conversation, but I am adding my voice. I'm speaking out that we need more women and tech and that we must do away with the tone deaf sexism that rears its ugly head all too often. Siri's creators want to one-up Apple with a smarter, self-learning AI Aug 12th 2014, 21:42, by klee When Siri was first introduced with the iPhone 4S in 2011, the voice-controlled computer of the future was finally at hand - until you asked it to arrange a reservation at your favorite restaurant. Now Viv Labs, which was co-founded by three Siri engineers, claims it's working on a radical new AI that outpaces Cortana, Siri or any other virtual assistant out today. Viv Labs explained in an interview with Wired that its AI - named Viv - isn't simply limited to completing tasks that its been programmed to do. Instead, this new electronic assistant will learn to complete almost any task by accessing more parts of the web. "I'm extremely proud of Siri and the impact it's had on the world, but in many ways it could have been more," Viv Labs Co-Founder Adam Cheyer said. "I want to do something that could fundamentally change the way software is built." A global brain Currently Siri is only able to access apps built into iOS 7 and other services Apple has made direct partnerships with, like ESPN. Even with Siri getting some cross-app upgrades in iOS 8, it won't be able to access a website such as Expedia to book a flight or set up a restaurant reservation on OpenTable. Viv Labs claims its AI will be able to do just that thanks to its improved ability to interpret voice commands. "Give me a flight to Dallas with a seat that Shaq could fit in," Dag Kittlaus, another of Viv Lab's co-founders, gave as an example request. Whereas Siri wouldn't be able to interpret the request, Kittlaus claims Viv would be able to connect the dots by looking into Kayak, SeatGuru and the NBA media guide to identify flights with more legroom. Viv Labs claims its AI has unique access to "a global brain" that helps power a million different apps and devices. The global brain will also theoretically be an open system to incorporate even more businesses and applications into its network. Coming to a reality near you? Viv Lab's founders say they imagine their AI being used with a phone, though they didn't suggest any platforms or how close they are to a final product. A lot of promises behind this novel AI reek of outlandish futurism shrouded by Apple-informed secrecy, but if Viv works as promised, it could be more robust than anything we've seen before. How powerful will Siri be on the iPhone 6? Samsung Galaxy Alpha benchmarks trump Galaxy S5 and HTC One M8 Aug 12th 2014, 19:55, by JR Bookwalter Samsung may be mere hours from unveiling its latest Android smartphone, and judging from newly leaked benchmarks, this one might be able to run circles around the hottest handsets around when it comes to sheer processing muscle. GSM Arena (via Russian website Hi-Tech@Mail.ru) reported the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Alpha will be able to hold its own in a battle of processor wits against the Korean manufacturer's own flagship device and even the HTC One M8. A leaked image revealed the device running an AnTuTu benchmark score of 38248, which handily trumps not only HTC's latest, but also a trio of Samsung's most coveted hardware, including the Galaxy S5. Judged purely from outward appearance, the Galaxy Alpha looks remarkably like the aforementioned Galaxy S5, right down to the metal frame, glass display and, yes, plastic rear shell - but it's apparently what's inside that counts. Octa-powered Although earlier rumors have pegged the Galaxy Alpha as running an Exynos 5433 processor, the latest round of leaks suggest a more powerful octa-core 1.8GHz Exynos 5 Octa chipset is on board, complete with 2GB RAM and hexa-core Mali-T628 GPU. The Galaxy Alpha could also be the first Samsung handset to support a nano-SIM card, based on a trio of leaked images that appear to be a close-up look at just such an ejectable metal slot. Everything else appears to line up against previously tipped specs, including the 4.7-inch 720p HD display running Android 4.4 KitKat, 1,850mAh battery, 4G LTE connectivity and the usual dual cameras (12MP on back, 2.1MP around front). Samsung is expected to unveil the Galaxy Alpha August 13, and a report from TechTastic in the Netherlands has pegged the price somewhere between €500 and €550 (about $668-$735, £397-£437, AU$721-AU$793) when it hits the streets in late September. Me too? Check out our review of the Xiaomi Mi 3 smartphone Possible Nexus 6 benchmark stacks Google flagship up to its rivals Aug 12th 2014, 19:29, by Michael Rougeau The long-awaited Nexus 6 may have just appeared, albeit in truncated form, on a benchmark site for all to see. The Motorola "Shamu," which sources have said is the code name for the next Nexus phone, appeared on GFXBench in the results for a single test. The site's Manhattan test placed the Shamu about on par with the Samsung Galaxy S5, the Sony Xperia Z2, the OnePlus One, and the HTC One (M8) in terms of GPU power. Based on its performance relative to these devices TechTastic reckons the Nexus 6 will sport a 1080p display and a Snapdragon 801 chipset, unsurprising specs for a high-end handset and probably a safe bet. A whale of a phone When word of the Motorola Shamu leaked in late July sources said it has a massive 5.9-inch screen, pushing it past the phablet category and closer to being a true whale. These sources also claimed the Shamu has a fingerprint scanner, much like the Nexus 6 is rumored to have. They added that the code-named Nexus 6 will arrive in November, and Google already confirmed that a new Nexus device is indeed on its way this year. If these rumors pan out the Nexus 6 will surely help usher in the age of Android L. Here's a possible peek at the Nexus 6, courtesy of the Android Twitter account

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