Android Advisor Issue 04 PDF

LATEST SMARTPHONE, TABLET AND APP REVIEWS
ANDROID
ISSUE
04
ADVISOR
GoogleVision:
Why your next TV will
be an Android TV
Chromecast Android TV
Amazon Fire TV Best Apps
PLUS
Best dual-SIM smartphones

and why you need one
TESTED: LG G Flex Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet Samsung Gear 2
Welcome...
A
ndroid took the smartphone and tablet world

by storm, but Google isn't stopping there.
With its Nest smart thermostat it's found a
way into our homes, and with Chromecast it's sat
down in front of the TV and made itself comfortable.
But it's more than welcome: its media-streaming
dongle can turn any old TV into a smart TV, and at
just 30 that makes it a game changer. We explore
Chromecast in depth from page 16.
Google has competition in the TV space, however.
Most recently from Amazon, in the form of its Fire
TV streaming box (see page 34). This device has yet
to make its way to the UK, but if the US pricing is
anything to go by Chromecast has little to fear.
Let's not forget Android TV, a version of Android
optimised for your TV. Read about it on page 32.
Also in this issue we explore the emerging trend
of dual-SIM smartphones. These devices are far
more popular in other corners of the world than here
in the UK, but as we suggest on page 61, UK users
could also benefit from having two SIMs. We've also
rounded up some of our favourite dual-SIM devices.
Many of the innovations we're seeing in mobile
tech concern health and fitness, but are we at the
point where your phone or tablet can replace your
family GP? We discuss the matter on page 50.
As always, we hope you've enjoyed this issue of
Android Advisor. Please send us your feedback via
Facebook (facebook.com/AndroidAdvisorUK) or
email us at marie_brewis@idg.co.uk.
2 ANDROID ADVISOR ISSUE 4

Android Advisor Issue 4.indd 2
23/04/2014 17:52
Qualcomm adds fastest

ever 64-bit mobile chip
Snapdragon 810 supports 4K video and LPDDR4 memory,
and will be in mobile devices in 2015
ualcomm is getting high on 64-bit chips with

its fastest ever Snapdragon processor, which
will render 4K video, support LTE Advanced
and could run the 64-bit Android OS.
The new Snapdragon 810 is the company's highest
performing mobile chip for smartphones and tablets,
Qualcomm said in a statement. Mobile devices with
the 64-bit chip will ship in the first half of next year,
and be faster and more power-efficient. Snapdragon
chips are used in handsets with Android and
Windows Phone operating systems, which are not
available in 64-bit form yet.
ISSUE 4 ANDROID ADVISOR 3

23/04/2014 17:52
The Snapdragon 810 is loaded with the latest

communication and graphics technologies from
Qualcomm. The graphics processor can render 4K
(3840x2160) video at 30fps, and 1080p video at
120fps. The chip also has an integrated modem
that supports LTE and its successor, LTE-Advanced,
which is emerging.
The 810 also is among the first mobile chips to
support the latest low-power LPDDR4 memory, which
will allow programs to run faster while consuming less
power. This will be beneficial, especially for tablets, as
64-bit chips allow mobile devices to have more than
4GB of RAM, which is the limit on current 32-bit chips.
The quad-core chip has a mix of high-power
ARM Cortex-A57 CPU cores for demanding tasks and
low-power A53 CPU cores for mundane tasks such

23/04/2014 17:52
Industry observers believe

64-bit Android could be announced at the
Google I/O conference in late June
as taking calls, messaging and MP3 playback. The
multiple cores ensure more power-efficient use of the
chip, which helps extend battery life of devices.
The company also introduced a Snapdragon 808
six-core 64-bit chip. The chips will be among the first
made using the latest 20nm manufacturing process,
which is an advance from the 28nm process used to
make Snapdragon chips today.
Qualcomm now has to wait for Google to release
a 64-bit version of Android for ARM-based mobile
devices. Intel has already shown mobile devices
running 64-bit Android with its Merrifield chip, but
most mobile products today run on ARM processors.
Qualcomm licenses Snapdragon processor
architecture and designs from ARM.
Work for 64-bit Android is already underway, and
applications such as the Chrome browser are already
being developed for the OS. Google has not officially
commented on when 64-bit Android would be
released, but industry observers believe it could be
announced at the Google I/O conference in late June.
Qualcomm spokesman Jon Carvill declined to
comment on support for 64-bit Android. But the chips
are further evidence of our commitment to deliver
top-to-bottom mobile 64-bit leadership across product
tiers for our customers, Carvill said in an email.

23/04/2014 17:52
Apple has a headstart and remains

the only company selling a 64-bit smartphone
with its iPhone 5s
Qualcomm's chips are used in some of the world's
top smartphones. A Qualcomm executive in October
last year called Apple's A7, the world's first 64-bit
mobile chip, a marketing gimmick, but the company
has moved on and now has five 64-bit chips coming
to medium-priced and premium smartphones and
tablets. But no 64-bit Android smartphones are
available yet, and Apple has a headstart and
remains the only company selling a 64-bit smartphone
with its iPhone 5s.
The 810 supports HDMI 1.4 for 4K video output,
and the Adreno 430 graphics processor is 30 percent
faster on graphics performance and 20 percent more
power efficient than the older Adreno 420 GPU.The
graphics processor will support 55Mp sensors,
Qualcomm said. Other chip features include 802.11ac
Wi-Fi with built-in technology for faster wireless data
transfers, Bluetooth 4.1 and a processing core for
location services.
The six-core Snapdragon 808 is a notch down
on performance compared to the 810, and also has
fewer features. The 808 supports LTE-Advanced, but
can support displays with up to 2560x1600 pixels.
It will support LPDDR3 memory. The chip has two
Cortex-A57 CPUs and four Cortex-A53 cores.
The chips will ship out to device makers for testing
in the second half of this year.

23/04/2014 17:52
Quad-HD smartphones
coming this year
LG is set to trump the competition with
a QHD smartphone in 2014
ith 4K (aka Ultra-HD) TVs now available, LG

claims we will see similar technology arrive
in the smartphone market later this year.
At Mercedes-Benz World in Weybridge LG showed
its latest OLED curved TV and soon-to-launch 2014 4K
sets. Speaking at the event, Andrew Coughlin, head
of mobile at LG UK, confirmed that we should expect
see a QHD smartphone in the second half of 2014.
It seems likely that LG will be the first to do so
since its LG Display department announced a
5.5in(1440x2560) panel last August, around the time
LG launched the G2 smartphone.
That's great news, given that all this year's flagship
launches have so far stuck with a full-HD resolution.
Whether we need QHD resolution on a
smartphone screen is debatable, but Coughlin says
that the key is video, with services such as Netflix
launching 4K streaming and smartphones now able
to record 4K video from the main camera.
23/04/2014 17:52
Rumoured Amazon
phone images leaked
Images of a prototype smartphone suggest Amazon
is developing a 3D-capable handset
ts the smartphone rumour that wont quit, and now

more circumstantial evidence of its eventual release
has surfaced in the wild. BGR has posted what it
describes as photos of an Amazon prototype device,
along with some spec and feature details shared by
multiple trusted sources.
The website points out that the prototype is
ensconced in a shell that makes it impossible to suss
out what the smartphone really looks like. But BGRs
sources say the phone will feature a 3D interface
(backing up an earlier report by the WSJ), and will
include four front-facing cameras to track the users
eye movement in the service of various 3D effects.
And, sure enough, if you look at the image above,
youll see what looks like a battery of cameras.

23/04/2014 17:52
Amazon is always interested in

platforms that help you impulse-buy digital
media, shoes and anything else that can
be delivered in a cardboard box
There will be two versions of the unnamed Amazon
phone, with the higher-end version portrayed in the
ostensibly leaked images launching first, BGR reports.
Its sources say a 4.7in display will be limited to a
720p resolution. We should also expect a Qualcomm
Snapdragon processor and 2GB of RAM, BGR says.
It makes perfect sense for the etailer to release
a phone, as its Kindle Fire tablets have been huge
successes, and Amazon is always interested in
platforms such as the Fire TV that help you
impulse-buy digital media, shoes and anything else
that can be delivered in a cardboard box.
But a 3D interface, why? Glasses-free 3D
doesnt work well on any platform, least of all
handheld devices. But, hey, if Jeff Bezos is going
to promise drone deliveries, then why not a 3D
smartphone? Theres not a kooky idea the company
seems unwilling to explore.
Lets just remember that a smartphone isnt a
smartphone until someone hits send on a press
release. Mega-companies such as Apple, Google
and Amazon have deep, deep war chests to R&D
wild ideas such as 3D phones. The mere presence
of an Amazon phone prototype shouldnt surprise
anyone. But well just have to wait until Jeff Bezos
sings to find out what the device will actually include
in the final, shipping flesh.

23/04/2014 17:52
Samsung's fingerprint
scanner gets hacked
All it takes is a dab of wood glue to bypass the fingerprint
sensor on the Samsung Galaxy S5
ackers have managed to bypass the

fingerprint scanner found on the Samsung
Galaxy S5 smartphone.
Researchers from Security Research Labs (SRL)
in Germany have demonstrated how it is possible
to easily trick the Samsung Galaxy S5's fingerprint
scanner. They used a fake fingerprint made from
a mould based simply on a photo of a fingerprint
smudge left on a smartphone screen.
This video demonstrates how flaws in the
implementation of fingerprint authentication in
the Samsung Galaxy S5 expose users' devices,
data and even bank accounts to thieves or other
attackers, says SRL.
The technique, called 'fingerprint spoofing', is the
same as that used to thwart the iPhone 5s' Touch
ID fingerprint scanner. However, SRL claims that
Samsung's implementation of the technology is
less safe than others. The researcher in the video
points to the fact it allows an unlimited number of
authentication attempts without requiring a password.
The Galaxy S5's lock screen allows five attempts
before asking for a password, but simply switching off
the screen and then waking it allows for another five.
Samsung says the hack is nothing to worry
about. This is a scenario that is widely regarded

23/04/2014 17:53
in the industry as posing no critical risk for general

consumers. This artificial experiment requires a
rare combination of highly specialised equipments,
materials and conditions. Samsung takes security
matters very seriously. We are continuously taking
measures to vigorously enhance security of the
device, said the firm in a statement.
While we take the findings from SRL very
seriously, we are still confident that fingerprint
authentication offers an easier and more secure way
to pay on mobile devices than passwords or credit
cards. PayPal never stores or even has access to your
actual fingerprint with authentication on the Galaxy
S5, said PayPal.
The scan unlocks a secure cryptographic key that
serves as a password replacement for the phone. We
can simply deactivate the key from a lost or stolen
device, and you can create a new one. PayPal also
uses sophisticated fraud and risk-management tools
to try to prevent fraud before it happens. However, in
the rare instances that it does, you are covered by our
purchase protection policy.
23/04/2014 17:53
Is Google planning an
icon overhaul?
Unified services are Google's game, so tackling disparate
interfaces and icon design could be next on its list
oogle's really into the idea of unifying all its

services into one overarching ecosystem.
First it worked on making your Google+
profile the de facto standard for logging into its
various services, and now it's tackling its disparate
interfaces and icon design.
Most of Google's web services and corresponding
Android apps don't have matching iconography, but
a new rumour suggests Google is making it a priority
to clean up this element of its
business. According to Android
Police, a few screenshot leaks
suggest that updated, unified
icon designs are in the works,
although there is no softwarebased evidence yet.
The screenshot to the
left shows new icons for all
Google's standard apps: Google
Play Music, Books, Movies and
Games, plus Google+, Calendar,
People, Chrome, YouTube and
more. Android Police's side-bysideicon comparison shows
Google's web- and Android
icons meshing into one.

23/04/2014 17:53
Photo: Lisa Bettany, tinyurl.com/pm7frp9
Gingerbread crashes more

than any other Android OS
...But iOS' crash rate is even worse
t's the perfect anecdote for why it's important to

update your phone. A recent report by Crittercism
found that Android 2.3 Gingerbread which is
about four years old, mind you has the highest
crash rate of any version of Android, at 1.7 percent.
That's double the rate of the latest version of Android,
4.4 KitKat, which hovers at around 0.7 percent.
Both Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean also
boast relatively low crash rates, which bodes well
for those with recent phones who are still waiting
for updates to KitKat. However, 19 percent of
Android users are still on Gingerbread and, although
a majority have moved on to Jelly Bean, that's still
an astonishing number of users dealing with a
less-than-optimal Android experience.
The report also adds that rivaling operating
systems such as Apple's iOS have crash rates that
are just as high as Gingerbread, with iOS 7.1 ranking
in at 1.6 percent, and iOS 6 netting 2.5 percent.
23/04/2014 17:53
iPlayer downloads now

on all Android devices
BBC extends download feature to all Android devices
running Ice Cream Sandwich and later
he BBC has decided to extend its iPlayer

download feature to almost every Android
smartphone and tablet on the market.
The download feature has previously been
limited to selected devices, but it is now available
to anyone running Android Ice Cream Sandwich
(version 4.0) or later. This means 96 percent of
Android users can now download BBC iPlayer
content for offline viewing.
The BBC has stopped extensively testing devices
to add them to the exclusive list of compatible
devices, which previously included mainly Google
Nexus and Samsung Galaxy devices, plus a handful
of HTC and Sony handsets.
We believe that the vast majority of devices
will enjoy a great video-downloading experience.

23/04/2014 17:53
However, with more than five thousand different

phone-, phablet- and tablet models able to install
the BBC iPlayer Android app, there are likely to be
a number of devices that exhibit bugs concerning
download behaviour, said the BBC.
Should the BBC become aware of any major
problems with a particular device and operating
system combination it may disable the feature while
it looks into whether it can be fixed.
We cant promise that we will fix every issue
that is brought to our attention (there may be
device limitations that prevent us from doing so),
but we will seek to address problems according
to the complexity of the issue, as well as the UK
popularity and the user numbers of the device
itself, added the BBC.

23/04/2014 17:53
Chromecast: the gadget

that changes everything
Google has finally made its Chromecast device available
in the UK. Heres why it will change the world
he Chromecast is a tiny gadget that connects

to your TV via HDMI and is powered by USB.
Its a 30 media-streaming device that allows
you to play TV shows, movies and music from a
variety of sources, on any display with an HDMI port.
The key thing about Chromecast is it is easy to set
up. It doesnt tie you to a subscription service; it is
simply a supremely easy and cheap way to turn any
TV into a smart TV. A smart TV with benefits.
The major content sources are BBC iPlayer,
Netflix, YouTube and Google Play. Theres also
Red Bull TV and Vevo, plus a couple of apps
that allow you to stream locally stored
media via your Chromecast.
BBC iPlayer speaks for itself. Using it
you can watch live BBC TV, as well
as catch up on virtually all the BBCs
vast amount of programming over
the past week. If you tend to catch up
with EastEnders via your laptop, the
Chromecast lets you enjoy it in glorious
HD on your large-screen TV. As a
Licence Fee payer in the UK you get
access to all of this content for free.
Netflix is the coming man of the
on-demand TV world. It offers thousands

23/04/2014 17:53
of TV programmes and movies, many of them

big-name US series, and its growing all the time.
And thats not taking into account the burgeoning
amounts of original programming such as the
recent House of Cards series, as well as Arrested
Development. You do, of course, have to pay for
Netflix, at 5.99 per month.
YouTube isnt just cats falling out of trees. Indeed,
more content is added to YouTube every day than
has ever been broadcast on any (or indeed all)
mainstream TV broadcasters. Increasingly highquality original programming and livestream media
is being uploaded to YouTube, and Chromecast
allows you to watch it on the big screen.
And then there is Google Play. This is Googles
alternative to iTunes and, although not as mature,
it tends to be cheaper and the number of titles
available is huge. You can watch a wide variety
of Hollywood- and indie movies, as well as highclass TV programming from around the world. The
documentaries are great, too. You have to pay for
individual titles, but you can rent them cheaply (and
23/04/2014 17:53
you can watch a film on your commute and finish

it off on the TV). Play Music is supported, too.
Other sources include Red Bull TV, which offers
up extreme sports, lifestyle and music programming,
and Vevo music videos.
Finally there are couple of apps Plex and
RealPlayer Cloud that allow you to watch locally
stored media such as ripped DVDs.
Expect more apps to support Chromecast and
other content providers to get in on the act soon.
Chromecast is a game changer

Theres a battle going on for your custom and
loyalty, and Chromecast is a key weapon in that
battle. The TV and movies you watch are an
important battleground
for a diverse variety of
tech players including
Google, as well as
BT, Sky and Virgin,
Apple, Samsung and
Microsoft, Amazon and
more.
These companies
became successful
offering different
types of products
in vastly different
markets. But the
internet is a unifying
force, and so we
find that a phone
company (BT) is in
an expensive battle
23/04/2014 17:53
Google's tentacles reach into most of our

lives as the provider of email, storage,
productivity software and more
with a TV company (Sky) to provide your broadband

and TV. They wont both win.
They understand that in the future we are all likely
to invest our time and money in just one or two
providers, expecting in return digital entertainment
and communications, connectivity and storage,
home automation and hardware. Those companies
listed wont all be independent entities in a decade.
Thus we find the search-engine company fighting
with all of the above to control all of your digital life.
Google started out as a free-to-use,
ad-supported search engine. Now it is the owner
of the biggest smartphone platform by volume in
Android, and the biggest TV broadcaster in YouTube.
Its tentacles reach into most of our lives as the
provider of email, storage, productivity software and
more. It sells apps, music and movies via Google
Play, and recently it invested in the Nest homeautomation service. Google wants you to use an
Android phone and a Chrome laptop, but most of all
Google wants you to use it and not its rivals.
Chromecast is cheap, very easy to use, and it
doesnt trap you into a long-term contract. It doesnt
tie you to a particular TV maker. It also provides a
better smart TV service than you likely get from your
Samsung- or Sony TV.

23/04/2014 17:53
Unlike a traditional smart TV Chromecast will

get regular software updates, and will always offer
access to a wide variety of content sources. Its also
easy to search, allowing you to type out or speak
search terms into a smartphone, and being Google
understanding semantic search terms: you can
ask it to find World War II documentaries or sports
shows rather than having to know the specific
names of the programmes you want to watch.
The Chromecast is a potential game changer
because it offers for a small price a great way to
access a lot of digital TV, without tying you to a
particular provider. Its an impulse buy that you will
be unlikely ever to regret making. But paradoxically
it offers Google a way into the most important screen
in the house, which furthers ties you into
its clammy embrace.
23/04/2014 17:53
Chromecast review
We get a hands-on with the 30 media-streaming
device that brings Google into your living room
30 play.google.com
fter what felt like an interminable wait,

Google has at last launched the Chromecast
in the UK. The 30 device lets you make
any TV smart all you need is a free HDMIinput on
your television and a Wi-Fi network. Its a low-cost
competitor to the Apple TV and allows you to
stream media using smartphones, tablets, PCs and
laptops. You can watch YouTube videos, Netflix,

23/04/2014 17:53
Vevo and other services, but on launch day, BBC

iPlayer was the only UK catch-up TV service to
support the Chromecast.
The device comes with a short HDMI cable in
case you cant plug it in to your TV directly, and its
powered by an included Micro-USB cable and mains
adaptor. However, if your television has a free USB
port, you can use that toprovide power instead.
Theres no remote control since the idea is
that you use your Android smartphone or tablet
to decide what to watch and to pause, rewind or
fast-forward the video. You can also use an iPhone
or iPad running iOS 6 or later or if you dont own
23/04/2014 17:53
a compatible device you can use any PC, laptop

or Google Chromebook and control things from
Googles Chrome web browser.
Once youve installed the app (or Chrome
extension) and connected the dongle to your
Wi-Fi network, youre ready to cast. A pop-up
box prompts you to choose a Chromecast, then
returns you to theplayback screen where you
cantap the play button.
The video will buffer and begin playing on your
TV. You can use the apps playback and volume
controls, but you can also switch to another app to
check your email, browse the web, play a game or
anything else without interrupting playback.
Theres no Chromecast interface as such.
Apart from the home screen, which is presumably
there just so you know the Chromecast is working,
everything is controlled from a companion device.
Casting is a somewhat misleading term since,
for the majority of the time, video isnt being sent
from your smartphone or tablet. Instead, the app
merely sets up a stream from the internet directly
to the Chromecast.
The Chromecast button appears in Netflix
for iOS and Android, too, and works like a charm.
Casting is a somewhat misleading term...

The app merely sets up a stream from the
internet directly to the Chromecast

23/04/2014 17:53
Once a video is playing, you can put your phone

or tablet to sleep to save battery, and still pause
the playback from thelock screen, or pick up the
controls from another device on the same network.
Googles Play Music and Play Movies & TV apps
on Android are also supported and let you cast
content youve bought or rented from the Play Store.
We were unable to play albums that wed bought
from Google Play, though we tried playing both
music that was downloaded to our smartphone as
well as songs stored in Google Music, but nothing
worked. The album art appeared on the TV briefly,
but was then replaced by a cannot play side-loaded
music error message.
23/04/2014 17:53
You can put your phone or tablet to

sleep to save battery and still pause the
playback from the lock screen
Strangely, theres no way to cast photos and
videos from your camera roll to your Chromecast,
whether youre using an iPhone, iPad or Android
device. Third-party apps such as AllCast can do this
but when we tried the free version, there was a 15to 20-second delay before a photo wed tapped was
shown on screen. Videos wouldnt play at all.
Video and audio quality will depend on the source
video. The worst-quality YouTube videos naturally
look awful on a big-screenTV, but good-quality
1080p footage looks pretty good. The Chromecast
supports 5.1 surround sound, but since audio is
output through the HDMI connector, youll need a
TV with an optical or coaxial S/PDIF output, which
is connected to a suitable surround-sound amp and
speakers in order to hear multichannel audio. Similar
to videoquality, the availability of 5.1 sound will
depend entirely on whether the video youre playing
has a 5.1 soundtrack.
Verdict
The Chromecast is cheap and easy to use, but
there arent many apps that support it yet. This
situation is bound to change over the coming
months, but for now you might findyour existing
smart TV offers more.
23/04/2014 17:53
Best free apps for

Google Chromecast
Google's not doing a great job alerting users to
Chromecast-compatible apps. Here's our pick
e all know Google's Chomecast supports

a handful of great apps, including Netflix,
BBC iPlayer, YouTube, Vevo, Plex, Rdio and
BT Sport, and that you can enjoy movies and music
bought through Google or stored on your device or
network via the streaming dongle. But what about
the apps you don't know about? More than 250
apps support Chromecast streaming; here's our
pick of some great free
Chromecast apps for Android
on which you're most likely
missing out.
Cast Store for

Chromecast
Tap the Discover Apps tab
in Google's own Chromecast
app and you'd be forgiven
for thinking only 11 apps are
supported. That's way off.
One way to find great new
apps for Chromecast is to
simply run a 'Chromecast'
search within Google Play or
the App Store; another is to
download an app dedicated
23/04/2014 17:53
to the very task at which Google is failing miserably

drawing attention to great new Chromecast apps.
Cast Store for Chromecast is a free aggregator of
Chromecast Android apps. It lets you quickly filter
those available by News, Apps and Games, highlights
an app of the week, lets you check those highest
rated by other users, and it lists all new releases since
your last visit. It is by far the easiest way to find new
Chromecast apps worth installing on your Android
smartphone or tablet.
Just click to install an app and Cast Store will take
you straight to the Google Play store, alleviating
any worries you might have had over downloading
content from unknown sources.
Doodlecast for Chromecast

Doodlecast in essence turns the TV in your living
room into a digital platform on which you can play
Pictionary, with no need to find a scrap of paper or
a working pen (who uses those anymore anyway?).
It's a bit like that one-time app phenomenon Draw
Something, allowing you to compete with other
Android users as you each take it in turn to either
draw something or guess what is that something,
but it puts your artwork on the big screen for all the
23/04/2014 17:53
family to admire/ridicule/guess what is that peculiar

object that really isn't as rude as it looks.
Doodlecast requires two or more Android devices,
with one as the drawing pad and the other used to
best-guess the answer. With a smartphone and a
tablet to hand we managed to have a great game
even without multiple players and we won every
time.
If you just want to draw pretty pictures on your TV,
try Castpad for Chromecast. Alternatively, if you're
loving the whole big-screen family entertainment
concept, also have a look at Trivia Cast.
CameraCast for Chromecast

We like Google's Photowall for Android and iOS,
which lets anyone connected to your home Wi-Fi
network send to your TV screen photos taken on
their phone, tablet or PC. The resulting interactive
wall of photos can even be saved to a video file.
But CameraCast for Chromecast offers a slightly
different take on the slideshow concept for those
with Android devices.
It, too, lets you instantly beam the photos taken
by your device's camera to your TV screen, and
23/04/2014 17:54
it supports the feeds of multiple devices. But in

unlocking the app CameraCast becomes far more
useful, allowing you to trigger an auto-shutter that
captures and sends to your TV pictures taken at set
intervals (this will drain the battery, though, so you'll
want to keep your device plugged in). We don't know
of many home CCTV systems that cost just 1.21
(okay, plus the cost of your tablet/smartphone, TV and
Chromecast dongle, but you already have those).
Up Down Fish
If you like Flappy Bird, you'll love Up Down Fish,
which is also available for iOS. This clone follows
a similar concept, with you tapping a large
onscreen Swim button on your phone or tablet to
manoeuvre a fish through tiny gaps in large pillars.
Except those tiny gaps appear much larger on your
TV screen even if half the screen is consumed by
the game's leaderboard.
Performance isn't exactly what consoles might
have led you to expect from gaming on the big
screen, but the jagged graphics and jerky frames take
23/04/2014 17:54
little away from Up Down Fish's appeal. Truth be told,

the most difficult task was trying to capture the above
photo on a 10in tablet while playing Up Down Fish on
a smartphone. (You can probably tell.)
If you enjoy playing games on your TV via
Chromecast, be sure to also check out GamingCast
(85p gets you Snake, Pong and other classics),
TicTacToe (aka Naughts and Crosses, free) and
Hangman (also free). All the Chromecast games we've
seen so far support multiplayer modes, which makes
them ideal for playing in the living room.
EduKids for Chromecast

EduKids for Chromecast is the app to which you
should turn when your child has not only run off
with your Android tablet, but begun eyeing up that
tiny black gadget sticking out the TV's HDMI port.
It's still in beta, but you can be pretty sure your child
will understand the implications of this is there
anything they don't know?
23/04/2014 17:54
EduKids is here to educate your child

on several of life's most important lessons,
such as the noise an animal makes when
it's about to rip off your head
Just to make sure, EduKids is here to educate them
on several of life's most important lessons, one of
which is the noises animals make when they're pissed
at you and about to rip off your head. (Just joking.)
The TV plays a sound, and the child must then tap
the relevant animal image from the selection shown
onscreen. And that's not always as easy as it sounds,
especially when you're shown, for example, four
pictures of birds and must decide which one goes
'squawk'. If only EduKids would also tell you what that
animal is called we might be on to something here.
Let's hope the kids don't come asking the nearest
adult for the answer.
Other lessons include pointing out which image
in a pair represents a given term, such as 'square' or
'white' or 'curved' or 'straight'. Sometimes EduKids
tries to catch you out by showing you the same pair of
images but changing the term. And it works.
What other apps can I download?

Other free Chromecast apps you might like to try
include Chrome Beta (or full Google Chrome on a
desktop), which mirrors your browser window on
the TV, plus BubbleUPnP, which lets you stream to
and access multimedia on various other devices,
including DLNA TVs, consoles, hifi systems and, of
course, Chromecast.More are appearing every day.
23/04/2014 17:54
Google's Android TV
leaked in screenshots
Android TV is Google's Android operating system
optimised for the living room
fter the flop of Google TV and the success

of the Chromecast, Google is reportedly
preparing Android TV.
Even though it has just launched the Chromecast
in the UK, Google is mounting another assault on the
living room with Android TV, according to The Verge.
In a similar way to Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and
Roku players, Android TV will display content with
Google Now-style cards and make recommendations.

23/04/2014 17:54
Android TV is an entertainment interface, not

a computing platform, says Google. Its all about
finding and enjoying content with the least amount of
friction. It will be cinematic, fun, fluid and fast.
Android TV is Android, optimised for the living
room consumption experience on a TV screen, much
like Android Wear is Android specifically for wearable
devices such as smartwatches. Google is asking
developers to create extremely simple TV apps to
match the simple set-top-box interface.
Screenshots show Google apps including Play
Movies & TV, YouTube, Play Music and Hangouts;
but there's also third-party apps such as Vevo,
Netflix, Hulu and Pandora. Users will also be able to
download games, such as Plants vs Zombies 2.
Content seems to be king, with Google stating
that Access to content should be simple and
magical. It has a rule that it should not take more
than three clicks or gestures from the home screen
to get something going.
Android TV will also support voice input and
notifications, but Google is suggesting developers
use the latter sparingly.
We could see Android TV unveiled at Google's I/O
developer conference, which takes place in June.

23/04/2014 17:54
Amazon Fire TV makes

its living-room debut
Amazon has entered the battle for the big screen
with its Amazon Fire TV streaming box
edia streaming is booming and the market is

hotting up with Amazon deciding to launch
its own hardware to take on the Apple TV,
Google Chromecast and Roku's players. The Fire
TV is a new device in Amazon's Fire line-up, able to
stream media to your television. Here's everything
you need to know about Fire TV.
The Amazon Fire TV streaming box is already
available to buy in the US, but there has been no
mention of when the device will make its way to
the UK and Europe. In the US it costs $99, and a
straightforward conversion would be 59. However,
our experience with previous tech launches suggests
you can expect to pay around 99 in the UK.
How does it work?

The small black box plugs into
your TV with an HDMI cable
and is able to stream 1080p
content over dual-band
Wi-Fi. Speedy performance
is touted, with a quad-core
processor and 2GB of
RAM the kind of specs
you'd find in a high-end
smartphone inside.
23/04/2014 17:54
Amazon says an 'ASAP' feature allows content to

start playing immediately after you press play, with
no lag. It also has HDMI-out, Dolby digital surround
sound support, plus optical and ethernet ports.
A Bluetooth remote control features a microphone,
which lets you control the Fire TV and search for
content using voice commands. There's no shouting
across the room at your TV, which is irritating, said
Amazon's Peter Larsen.
The Fire TV runs Android and, as you'd expect,
hooks up to the firm's Prime Instant Video service for
films and TV shows. However, you can also access
other services from the little black box, including
Pandora, Spotify, YouTube, Vevo and Crackle.
Surprisingly, Netflix is even supported, with
Amazon taking aim at rivals for their 'closed
ecosystems' particularly the Xbox, which requires
an annual Xbox Live Gold subscription to access
services such as Netflix.
A gaming controller (around $40) will turn the Fire
TV into a makeshift games console.
23/04/2014 17:54
Have smartphones hit

a technology ceiling?
Why sitting out this generation of flagship
smartphones won't disadvantage you
t's only the end of April

and already we've seen
a number of flagship
smartphone launches.
This is usually cause
for celebration, but so
far I've been slightly
underwhelmed. Have
manufacturers hit a
ceiling with mobile
technology?
When the HTC One
(M8) went on sale some
clever PR meant it generated
a lot of hype. But the Samsung Galaxy S5 and Sony
Xperia Z2 went on sale within days of the HTC; and
once the hype dies down it will not only struggle to
stand out in the shadow of products from technology
giants Sony and Samsung, but it will struggle to stand
out against its predecessor.
The HTC One M8 isn't alone in this regard.
What's interesting is that none of these devices is
noticeably different from its predecessor. There's very
little difference in appearance, and no particularly
noteworthy new features (at least none that will
persuade you to part with upwards of 500).

23/04/2014 17:54
The worst offender is the Xperia Z2, which has

superseded the Z1 after just a few short months and
is barely any different. It has a slightly bigger screen,
a slightly better processor and the ability to record
and output 4K video.
Moving on to the Galaxy S5, Samsung has matched
Apple's iPhone 5s with a fingerprint scanner and
one-upped it with a heart-rate sensor. Okay, it's a first
for a smartphone, but it's more of a gimmick than a
revolutionary feature. The S5 is also dust- and waterresistant; sorry, Samsung, we've seen it all before.
HTC has taken its popular 2013 flagship
smartphone and adopted the fine-tuning approach
with minor improvements all round. Its USP is the Duo
Camera, which lets you change the focus point after a
photo has been captured. It's a decent innovation but,
unless you use it on the right photo, it's shown up for
what it is: a poor imitation of a Lytro camera.
What's most disappointing is the lack of progress
in displays. All these smartphones have the same
full-HD resolution as last year's models: what
happened to the promise of Quad HD or 4K? With

23/04/2014 17:54
the iPhone 5s packing a 64-bit chip, it's a shame

to see these Android flagships sticking with 32-bit
processors in 2014.
What gives? Is this it for smartphones in 2014?
Reader, patience is a virtue.
The smartphone market moves so quickly that
although it might appear nothing much is happening,
there's more to come. Smartphones seem to be
emulating Intel's 'tick-tock' cycle, which sees its
chips get a new microarchitecture and a die shrink in
alternate releases. This is most evident in iPhones,
with Apple launching a new design, and following it
up the next year with an S model.
And let's not get ahead of ourselves: it's still early
in the year and there are a couple of handsets in the
works that could buck the trend.
23/04/2014 17:54
Chief among these is the LG G3, which follows the

brilliant G2 that still tops many smartphone charts.
This could well be the first handset with a 4K display
and that's more than just a hunch. The firms display
arm showed off a Quad-HD screen for mobile devices
last August, around the time the G2 was announced.
The LG G3 is rumoured to launch in the coming
months, which should be plenty of time to get that
panel into a handset. Whether we need 4K on a
smartphone is another matter.
The other big launch is the iPhone 6, which is likely
to be announced in September. Im expecting great
things from Apple here rumours of a larger screen
are surely the tip of the iceberg.
If you've got a 2013 flagship smartphone and are
eager to upgrade, you might do better to wait until
2015. Let's hope LG and/or Apple can bring us some
real excitement this year.

23/04/2014 17:54
How long will it take

advertisers to ruin
wearable tech?
Are smartwatches and smartglasses just another
platform for advertising?
he advertising industry has a long tradition of

co-opting any cultural trend or tech innovation
that attracts a following, and along the way
draining whatever made it good in the first place.
Long before a middle-aged Johnny Rotten
accepted Country Lifes buttery dollars, the punk
look and sound had been deployed wherever a
commercial needed a 15-second shorthand for
teenage rebellion. And devotees of skating, surfing,
gaming, hacking and even videos of musicians
dancing on treadmills will be familiar with the same
awful feeling that the thing you love has just been
ruined to get someone else to buy car insurance.
Theres a good chance that the next target is
wearable tech, which stands for nearly everything
advertising agencies most admire: wealth; status;
youth and innovation; exclusivity (at least in the case
of Google Glass); and, most importantly, the capacity
to capture vast quantities of consumer data.
Yet its hard to be sure of wearables future
because one of the biggest players has yet to
even join the game. We are still awaiting Apples
take on the concept; whether that will take the
form of a smartwatch the long-foretold iWatch

23/04/2014 17:54
or a headset, or even a ring, it seems unlikely

that Cupertino will be able to keep its hands off
wearables for long.
But if so, it will be interesting to see how Apple
differentiates itself in a market that is filling up
rapidly. In the case of the iPhone, famously, the
companys bosses sat down and groused to one
another about everything they disliked about their
mobiles, then set out to fix it all. Its almost become
an Apple trademark: the flawed, immature market,
the brainstorm, and finally the market-changing
product. But it hasnt happened for a while. And if
the iWatch truly is the next project, the question is
this: what is it about wearables that needs fixing?
One clue to that will be provided by the next few
steps taken by Googles Glass headset a stunning
and potentially landmark product that nevertheless
offers possibilities that are thrilling (to advertisers)
23/04/2014 17:54
and ominous (to the rest of us). Its ability to sense

not only where you are, but what youre looking at,
combined with knowledge of your buying habits and
control of a screen you carry around on your face
all day long, makes it pretty much the technology
that an advertiser would build if given unlimited
resources and time.
An example of the way Google Glass could host
advertising has been offered by Blippar, a clever
image-recognition app that spots coded pictures
on billboards or newspapers, for instance and
turns them into augmented reality video, adverts or
whatever the original coder wishes. Look at a film
poster with your Glass headset on, for instance, and
it might automatically play you the trailer.
And smartwatches arent far behind on
advertisers wishlists, as Todd Wasserman recently
warned on the website Mashable. Smartwatches
watches generally are much more intimate than
phones, and more integrated into our lives; theyre
literally on our bodies at all times. Which makes
advertising on this format far more difficult to ignore.
Passed a branch of Banana Republic? Perhaps
Banana Republic would like to remind you about a
sale its running. Oh, did you post about your running
times on Twitter? Perhaps Banana Republic has
some nice running gear in stock.
Smartwatches are much more

intimate than phones they're literally on
our bodies at all times

23/04/2014 17:55
Anything that is overtly advertising

intruding into the user's relationship with the
device runs the risk of appearing crass
As often with technological advances, sci-fi got
there first; the film usually referenced in these
discussions is Minority Report, with its unctuous
virtual shop assistants that pop up when you walk
into the Gap and offer items similar to previous
purchases. A closer analogue may be found in
Terry Gilliams far more recent Zero Theorem, which
depicts hypertargeted advertising as the unreliable
mess we all secretly suspect it may become.
Could we end up in a world like Minority Report?
The thing is, unlike in most of cinemas dystopias,
thats up to us the market will go where users
lead it. If nobody uses Blippar, Blippar will die out.
But the evidence suggests, sadly, that most of
us would happily sign up to the most intrusive of
targeted advertising if its presented to us as a way
to get something for free.
The key thing for tomorrows wearable-tech
advertisers to consider is intrusiveness. Wearable
tech is personal, intimate; anything that is overtly
advertising intruding into the users relationship with
the device runs the risk of appearing crass.
Smartwatch notifications need to be trimmed back
to the bare minimum; they arent like smartphone
alerts, which are relatively easy to ignore. If you
keep tapping your users on the wrist, asking for their
attention, youre headed for trouble.

23/04/2014 17:55
3G, 4G and other mobile

connectivity explained
What do those little symbols at the top of your
smartphone's screen really mean?
e all know that the little blobs or bars in the

top-right corner of our smartphone displays
indicate the level of signal strength we
have when making a phone call. But what are the
cryptic letters that are seen next to them?
GPRS, E, 3G and 4G are all indicators of signal
strength for downloading and uploading data to
your smartphone for browsing the web, sending/
receiving emails, watching videos and so on. This
is not the same as the signal strength of actual, oldfashioned phone calls, but the speed with which you
can download or upload data.
Each generation of data network gets faster.
We saw 2G from 1999, 3G from 2001, and 4G in
2012. 5G is some way off, though.

23/04/2014 17:55
If you see nothing next to the call-strength

bars then youre out of luck when it comes to
downloading or uploading any data. You need to
move to a location with better data signal strength or
find a Wi-Fi hotspot.
Wi-Fi on your smartphone

This is potentially the best and cheapest data
delivery mode youll get using your smartphone.
It can be super-fast, and it can be
terribly slow, depending on the
connection and the number
of people using that Wi-Fi
source. It wont use up any of
your smartphone's contract data
allowance, so unless you have to
pay for it it should be free,
and will usually be pretty fast.
GPRS explained
One step up from no data signal at all
is GPRS, which stands for General Packet Radio
Service. Wikipedia defines GPRS as a packet
oriented mobile data service on the 2G and 3G
cellular communication system's global system for
mobile communications (GSM).
GPRS provides data rates of 35- to 171kb/s.
2G cellular technology combined with GPRS is
sometimes described as 2.5G. It provides slowspeed data transfer.
All you need to know is that GPRS means you
might eventually get a web page to load or an email
or iMessage to send, but it will probably take longer
than you have patience.
23/04/2014 17:55
Whats it like? GPRS is like asking your elderly

neighbour to deliver the mail for you.
EDGE explained
The E stands for EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for
GSM Evolution). This is a step up from GPRS and can
reach speeds of between 120- and 384kb/s.
Whats it like? Edge is like asking your neighbours
child to deliver the mail for you.
3G explained
The 3G standard uses a technology called UMTS
(Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) as its
core network architecture. It first saw the light of day
in 2001. This network combines aspects of the 2G
network with some new technologies and protocols
to deliver a significantly faster data rate.
23/04/2014 17:55
Possible 3G speeds are 384kb/s to 2Mb/s. Theres

another brand of 3G called HPSA, sometimes
dubbed 3.5G, which boasts potential speeds of
between 600kb/s and a whopping 10Mb/s, although
the average is 1- to 3Mb/s.
Whats it like? 3G is like asking delivering the
mail yourself.
4G explained
4G is the fastest data network speed youll see
on your smartphone today. Depending on signal
strength 4G can often be faster than using Wi-Fi,
but also more expensive if you use a lot of data.
On average it's five times faster than 3G.
4G is based on the WiMAX or LTE (Long Term
Evolution) systems, and has a theoretical maximum
speed of 100Mb/s. You'll never see that, though:
3- to 10Mb/s is the average. If youre really lucky
you might top 20Mb/s.
There are different bands of 4G. 2.6GHz 4G is
the fastest, followed by 1.8GHz and 800MHz. While
800MHz doesnt
boast the same data
capacity as the faster
4G bands, it is better
at travelling over
longer distances and
in penetrating walls.
Vodafone and EE
both own chunks
of the 2.6GHz and
800MHz bands. EE
also uses the 1.8GHz
23/04/2014 17:55
spectrum. O2 currently uses just the 800MHz 4G

spectrum, so may suffer in inner-city environments.
Three also uses the 800MHz band, and some
1.8GHz spectrum. To get 4G your smartphone needs
to be compatible with the service.
4G subscriptions are usually more expensive than
3G, but if you download a lot of data it may well be
worth it. Carriers claim that 98 percent of the UK
should be able to access 4G within two years.
Whats it like? 4G is like paying a speedy courier to
deliver the mail for you.
5G explained
After 4G comes 5G, which is expected in 2020.
Samsung is working to develop a 5G network
(mmWave Mobile Technology) with a potential top
speed of 1Gb/s. Thats 100 times faster than 4G.
5G will be capable of providing a ubiquitous
gigabit experience to subscribers anywhere and
23/04/2014 17:55
offers data transmission speeds of up to several tens

of Gb/s per base station, boasts the company.
Whats it like? 5G will be like using high-speed
stealth drones to deliver your mail for you.
Downloads faster than uploads

Downloading stuff on your smartphone is faster
than uploading content. Much faster. In tests on
our sister site Computerworld we found uploading
to be painfully slow. While 3G mustered a 25kb/s
throughput, 4G was able to move 41kb/s not a
terribly significant improvement. Clearly, this service
is more useful for downloading large chunks of
data, such as monster spreadsheets, videos and
presentations, than for tasks such as uploading
content or sending emails bulging with attachments.

23/04/2014 17:55
e
n
o
h
p
a
n
Ca
or tabletyour
replace
doctor?
Medical apps and devices are placing the future of

healthcare in the palm of our hands
he past few years has seen a huge growth

in the health- and fitness market for mobile
devices. Activity trackers such as the Nike
Fuelband, Fitbit Flex and Jawbone Up will monitor
your physical activity throughout the day, and
even while you sleep. Diet-logging apps such as
MyFitnessPal will help you control the amount of
calories you eat, and some fitness apps can even turn
your daily run into a frantic escape from a zombie
hoard, which is pretty good motivation on a cold
December morning. This is all very useful, but how

23/04/2014 17:55
far can it really go in terms of our well being? Can

our mobile devices become more than just a way to
monitor our lives? Could they end up saving them?
Dr Larry Smarr is a hugely respected American
computer scientist, who helped popularise the use
of high-speed networks before the internet. For the
past few years he has been involved in an experiment
in which he monitors nearly every aspect of his life
weight, calories, activity, sleep, urine, saliva, blood and
even stool. This may sound excessive, and for most
people it certainly would be, but by using technology
to accurately record such a comprehensive range
data about himself he is able to spot tiny changes in
his body, which led to a remarkable discovery. Before
any observable symptoms appeared, Dr Smarr was
able to diagnose that he was suffering from the early
stages of Crohns disease.
Dr Larry Smarr

23/04/2014 17:55
In a world in which you can see what youre

doing to yourself as you go along, Dr Smarr told the
BBCs Horizon program, the hope is that people will
take more personal responsibility for themselves, in
keeping themselves healthy. So, its almost like were
at day zero of a whole new world of medicine, and
what will come out the other end is a far healthier
society thats focussed on wellness rather than trying
to fix sickness when its way too late.
Dr Smarr may have all the advantages of a
complete medical lab behind him, but the principle
he asserts that devices can help us notice trends
before they become serious is a very real possibility
today. And some innovative manufacturers are
starting to realise the potential of mobile devices.
AliveCor is a San Francisco based company that
has designed and built a mobile accessory thats far
more useful than Will.i.ams gold plated iPhone case,
and is also considerably cheaper, too.
The Heart Rate Monitor case (169, pictured below)
for iPhone and Android allows users to monitor their
heart rate via a slim protective cover that adds
little bulk to the handset.

23/04/2014 17:55
Data-driven healthcare will be able

to help predict and prevent known or unknown
adverse health conditions
We built the device to provide immediate access
to ECG rhythm data for patients and healthcare
providers, explains Euan Thompson, AliveCors
President and CEO. The AliveCor Heart Monitor
provides people with suspected or diagnosed heart
conditions, and those at risk of heart conditions, the
ability to track their heart health anytime, anywhere,
at an affordable cost.
At first glance the case looks similar to many on the
market; in that its black, offers a moderate amount
of protection, and has gaps for all the ports. The one
main difference is found on the back, where two silver
bumps house the devices sensors.
By pressing the fingertips of both hands on the
electrodes, reveals Euan, an ECG is easily recorded
in approximately 30 seconds.
The readings are then displayed on the
corresponding AliveECG app, giving users the ability
to record the patterns over time to build up a detailed
picture of their heart. This might sound like navel
gazing to some, but when you consider the fact that
heart disease is by far the biggest killer of men in the
UK, being able to see any irregular behaviour ahead
of time could be a literal life saver.
As healthcare continues to evolve, we believe
mobile health will transition into the standard of care,
says Thompson. Mobile health devices have the

23/04/2014 17:55
potential to enable data-driven healthcare that will,

in effect, be able to help predict and prevent known
or unknown adverse health conditions. It will not only
impact the practice of medicine, but the way medical
research is done.
This sentiment is also held by Azoi, an Indian
company with its own iPhone case (and standalone
module for Android users), which can measure not
only your heart rate but also blood pressure, blood
oxygen, temperature, and (via an included peripheral)
the capacity of your lungs. The Wello (120, pictured
below) is an impressive piece of technology, which
utilises built-in sensors in a similar fashion to the
AliveCor case. Its extended range of functions also
mean that it could prove useful in building up a wider
mosaic of your health-related data, something that
would have been next to impossible without access to
advanced medical equipment only a few years ago.

23/04/2014 17:55
Thanks to developments in technology, states

Azoi CEO Hamish Patel, health monitoring can now
be incorporated within everyday products this is key
as it makes it much less intimidating. Indeed, mobile
computing is driving a profound shift in healthcare
empowering people to better understand and better
manage their own health by making better lifestyle
decisions. Judging by the demand we've seen for the
product since launch, it is clear to us that this shift is
already underway.
The big players in the industry would also agree.
Qualcomm, usually known for providing the majority
of chips inside mobile phones, is investing substantial
amounts in the areas of mobile healthcare. In 2012
it launched the Tricorder X Prize (pictured above), a
global competition in which independent teams are
challenged to build a handheld device capable of
diagnosing fifteen key diseases, plus various health
indicators, through non-invasive means.
As the name suggests, this is based on the magical
medical device that Dr McCoy used to wield on Star
Trek, with Qualcomm even having Brent Spiner,
who played Commander Data in Star Trek: The Next
Generation, help launch the competition.
23/04/2014 17:55
It's fairly easy to generate large amounts

of data from the human body; it's far more
difficult to know what it means
While the dream of this technology may
have originated in the realm of science fiction, the
$10m prize, not to mention the $25,000 cost of entry
for teams, shows that the Tricorder, at least in some
form, may be a very imminent creation.
The idea of medical devices, perhaps incorporated
into our phones, is tangible and realistic in the next
few years. But how people will actually use them?
After all, if you dont know what youre looking for,
how will you ever spot an emerging illnesses?
Then theres the more worrying issue that many
people already resist the need to visit their GP
even when they feel ill, so what potential harm
could a device of your own bring with it?
We simply don't know, states Dr Margaret
McCartney, long time GP and regular contributor
to the British Medical Journal. The fear is that the
wrong people do and don't get medical attention.
Instead people's information is a false positive or get
false reassurance. Time and again we assume that
more information is better for us when the truth is
more complex and counterintuitive.
The big problem is the lack of direct evidence of
benefit, she continues. It's fairly easy to generate
large amounts of data from the human body; it's
far more difficult to know what it means (what's
normal/abnormal) and whether there are effective

23/04/2014 17:55
interventions based on that data that will do more

good than harm. It would be absolutely possible to
do randomised controlled trials, but at present the
growth of the self-monitoring industry has not been
matched by quality research.
This growth can be seen in a report issued by the
Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology,
which found more than 40,000 health-related apps
available on the iTunes store alone. These ranged
from simple provision of health information, such
as the NHS symptom checker app, to tracking the
locations and severity of asthma attacks through a
Bluetooth peripheral attached to an inhaler.
In response to this overwhelming choice the NHS
has set up its own repository at apps.nhs.uk, where
those listed have been approved by the organisation.
Apps can only become part of the library, explains
Inderjit Singh, head of enterprise architecture at NHS
England, if they have gone through a review process
that looks at the information governance, the clinical
safety and the potential clinical risks.
While apps and devices that diagnose symptoms
and provide advice on treatment may still be out of
reach, using them alongside
existing medical services as
complementary therapy is
already beginning. It might
also go a long way to helping
the current workload on
the NHS. One such app is
Vitrucare, by Dynamic Health
Systems, which helps people
with long-term illnesses
manage their condition.
23/04/2014 17:55
70 percent of the NHS cost is on people with long

term conditions thats 80 billion per year explains
Dr Richard Pope, Clinical Director at DHS. About
60 percent of a GPs time is spent managing the
care of people with long-term illness. So its a huge
problem, and its growing like topsy because of the
change in the structure of the population and the fact
that nobody takes enough exercise.
Vitrucare is a web-based service that monitors
data recorded by patients with existing conditions,
and helps them set and achieve goals that will
improve their health.
It dovetails in with the clinical service and
eases the burden on that service, and gives the
patient a much more immediate response than
they might otherwise be able to get. What we do,
is if somebody puts in results that we think are
outside an appropriate range of self care then
they get a warning.
23/04/2014 17:55
Because the system has been designed by medical

professionals, is focussed on specific areas of care,
and has been set up via an in-depth consultationstyle process, it enables the program to have more
precision in its delivery.
People who are managing long-term illness are,
in many ways, acting like athletes, says Pope. In
other words they have to watch their diet, they have
to take a series of steps instead of training it might
be medication they have to monitor what theyre
doing... it is like an athlete, its the same sort of thing.
So if you wrap an electronic coach around the person
you can actually help them really substantially to
achieve the sort of things that are important to them.
There can be no doubt that the collection of data
about our bodies and behaviours can be a strong
weapon against illness, as long as it is shared with
medical professionals who know how to interpret it
correctly. Visiting your GP with more information than

23/04/2014 17:56
I feel a bit off could be the difference between a

long, drawn-out diagnosis and a quick solution to
your malady. As mobile devices gain in power and
popularity we face a new phase of health that will
look very different to what we have had up until now.
The technology wasnt there, Pope concludes,
the users of technology werent ready for it, and the
cost of delivering the technology was too high. Of
course, all of those things have changed and weve
got an alignment of the planets here which we have
to take advantage of.
Then theres the threat of
legal complaints brought by
customers who have missed
vital indicators and now
want recompense. Its a
perilous road to walk, and
its no surprise that all the
companies we spoke to took
the same line when it came to
their legal position.
We're trying to help
people manage their
health more effectively
and make better
lifestyle choices, says
Azois CEO. We're
not a replacement for
medical care. We have
been very careful to
make sure that people
understand that.
23/04/2014 17:56
Why you need

a dual-SIM smartphone
We look at five reasons why maintaining two smartphone
contracts is worth your while
otorola's Moto G is not just a great dualSIM smartphone; it's one of our favourite
smartphones. And with the announcement
of the first Windows dual-SIM Phone, the Nokia Lumia
630, Android Advisor has compiled five reasons why
the often overlooked perk could save you pounds.
1. The benefits of two plans

Different plans offer different benefits. Having a
smartphone that supports two SIM cards will allow
you to milk the value of both plans, while keeping
your minimum monthly spend low. One SIM card
could have a great plan for data, while the other
could be great value for voice calls.
2. Who wants to carry a

personal- and a business
phone?
The novelty of
carrying two phones
quickly wears thin.
Having a dual-SIM
phone allows you
to carry one phone that can
accommodate your personal
and your business line.
23/04/2014 17:56
3. The Stinson
We don't encourage The Stinson. In fact, we
actively discourage The Stinson. But we wouldn't
be doing our job if The Stinson named after the
promiscuous Barney Stinson from TV show How
I Met Your Mother didn't make the list.
Dual-SIM smartphones can carry two SIM cards,
which means one mobile can receive calls from two
different numbers. People who don't want certain
phone numbers showing up on one bill can use the
other SIM card to make phone calls.
4. Global roaming
Going overseas? A dual-SIM smartphone is an easy
way to keep receiving messages from people at
home. Purchase a local SIM and pop it in the second
tray to avoid nasty international roaming charges
when you call people in the country you're visiting.
5. In case of emergency
The major mobile operators cover most but
definitely not all of the UK. Having the SIM cards
of two networks is like having a safety net. If one SIM
card isn't picking up a signal, there's a chance the
other one could.
23/04/2014 17:56
Best dual-SIM
smartphones
You want to carry two SIMs in a single phone, but which
are the best phones that have this functionality?
ual-SIM smartphones give you the opportunity

to have two different phone networks on a
single piece of hardware, saving you money
and also the nuisance of carrying around two different
gadgets with you.
The demand for dual-SIM smartphones has risen
dramatically in recent years, and the market is finally
starting to catch up. Here are some of our favourites
of those available. Pricing information is from Amazon,
but shop around and you may find a better deal.
Motorola Moto G
245
motorola.com
Motorola's Moto G is still the best
budget smartphone around. It's got
great build quality, an excellent screen
and decent cameras, and is limited
only in the storage department and
a lack of 4G support. A great buy.
23/04/2014 17:56
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Dual-SIM

262
samsung.com/uk
The Galaxy S4 mini is a great
mid-range option, oering
the same styling as the
full-blown S4, but with
a cheaper price tag.
The cameras are
good, but the
screen and
storage are
both under par.
HTC One Dual SIM 802w

540
htc.com/uk
The HTC One has superb
performance and excellent
build quality, spoiled only
slightly by running hot in use.
You can't fault the feature set,
and in terms of audio visual
output it is unsurpassed.

23/04/2014 17:56
Sony Xperia C Dual SIM C2305

229
sony.co.uk
Sony's Xperia C is a 5in
smartphone with an 8Mp camera.
With a 1.2GHz quad-core processor
inside and running Google Android
4.2 Jelly Bean, it's 8.9mm thick and
weighs just 153g.
Acer Liquid S1 Dual SIM

333
acer.com
With a 5.7in (1280x720, 258ppi)
screen the Acer Liquid S1 is a beast
of a handset, yet it's still just 8mm
thick. Inside you'll nd a 1.5GHz
processor and 1GB of RAM. Acer's
Float UI is a nice addition.

23/04/2014 17:56
LG G Flex curved-screen
smartphone review
Are curved screens deserving of the hype they've
received? We test the LG G Flex
499 lg.com/uk
he G Flex is LG's first curved-screen

smartphone, going up against the Samsung
Galaxy Round. It's got a bendy or flexible
screen, which is fixed in a set curve.
While Samsung has gone for a side to side curve
on the Galaxy round, the G Flex does things in the
opposite direction. It is curved from top to bottom in

23/04/2014 17:56
a banana like shape. LG says, from a design point of

view, this is all about ergonomics.
It's supposed to fit your face better when making
a call and sit more comfortably in your hand. In all
honesty it doesn't feel much different than a regular
flat smartphone in either of these scenarios. What we
can say is that it fits much better in a back pocket.
Underachieving ergonomics aside, a bigger
problem is the sheer size of the G Flex. Yes, it
matches the contour of my face better than a 'normal'
smartphone, but it knocks my glasses out of the way
in order to have a conversation. I could use it as a
shade from the midday sun it's so big. I have very few
items of clothing with pockets big enough for the G
Flex, so I suspect female users will have to keep this
device in a bag.
LG has opted for a 6in screen, putting it in the
phablet category with devices such as the HTC One
Max, Nokia Lumia 1520 and Sony Xperia Z Ultra. It
makes the LG G2 look small.

23/04/2014 17:56
A big screen is great if you want to watch a lot of

video, but in everyday use the G Flex is cumbersome
and unwieldy. With my relatively large hands, I can
reach a third of the display when held in one hand.
Be prepared to adopt a two-handed approach.
The back of the G Flex looks at lot like the G2
with LG's Rear Key power and volume keys below
the camera lens rather than on the side or top of the
device. I like this feature, but it's not for everyone.
As with the G2, you can switch on and off the screen
with a double tap.
On the rear of the G Flex is a self-healing cover,
which is supposed to remove light scratches caused
by loose coins and keys in your pocket, not the
aggressive kind of scrapes caused by dropping the
phone on hard ground. It's difficult to test this over
a relatively short period of time we'd like to take a
23/04/2014 17:56
photo of the back after months of usage but after

a few days there are a few hairline scratches on the
plastic surface. In the G Flex's defence, these are only
really noticeable if you are actively looking for them.
Our first sample of the G Flex had some serious
screen issues, including a horrible blue tint on about
half of the display and some distracting image
retention, or 'ghosting'. So much so that we swapped
it for another handset and fortunately, things got a lot
better. There was no blue tint and, although there is
some image retention, it lasts only a split second.
Something which didn't go away is a grainy quality
to the image. It gives a softness that some users
might like, but compared to other smartphones it
simply looks inferior.
It's strange that LG has opted for a 720p resolution
instead of full-HD 1080p. On a 6in screen this makes
for an unattractive pixel density of just 245ppi. It's not
something we want to see on a premium smartphone,
no matter how curved the screen is.
The curved nature of the G Flex is undoubtedly
cool. But the fascination over this quickly wears off
and, over time, we've realised the benefits to the
curved screen are minimal.
It's supposed to be more immersive when watching
a film or playing a game in landscape mode, but we

23/04/2014 17:56
haven't noticed a
difference to a regular
flat screen. What it
does do is give a
more dimensional feel
when scrolling lists
or pages with the G
Flex in portrait mode.
This could potentially
make some users feel
nauseous, in the same
way do 3D screens.
Hardware &
performance
Like the G2 and
other premium
smartphones, the G
Flex has a Qualcomm
Snapdragon 800
processor and 2GB of RAM. Unsurprisingly, our
benchmark results are almost identical to those we
saw from its smaller counterpart.
Geekbench 3 yielded a score of 2273 points;
GFXBench 2.7 came in at 28fps; and we recorded
1103ms in SunSpider. That's almost up there with the
impressive HTC One M8.
With almost every smartphone manufacturer
boosting performance for benchmark apps, we're
much less bothered about numbers. From a realworld user perspective the G Flex offers decent
performance. That Snapdragon 800 has proven to
be a formidable force and is very capable of dealing
with most requests.
23/04/2014 17:56
Storage
There's only one model of the G Flex and it has
32GB of internal storage. That's a decent amount,
given that most phones in this price range have half
that. However, the device doesn't have a microSD
card slot, and it's not like there isn't room for one.
Infrared and wireless

As with the G2, the G Flex has an infrared transmitter
for taking control of devices such as your TV. There's
a Quick Remote section of the notification bar, which
you can toggle on and off so you don't even need to
launch the app to change channels or adjust volume.
You'll need to hold the phone upright for it to work
properly, though, since the sensor is located on the
back, next to the camera rather than on top like a
traditional remote.
As for other wireless options, you get pretty much
what you'd expect from a top-end device. There's

23/04/2014 17:56
Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy, dual-band Wi-Fi up to

802.11ac, NFC, GPS and support for 4G LTE networks.
What we're still not seeing is wireless charging. It
seems that only top-range Nokia and Google Nexus
devices have this feature as standard.
Cameras
It's good news that the G Flex wields the same
camera technology as the G2. That means it's got
a 13Mp rear camera with optical image stabilisation
(OIS). There's no dedicated camera button but, like
most smartphones, you can use the volume buttons
to snap away. The RearKey location makes this
pretty tricky, though.
Our main complaint is that the autofocus takes a
little while, certainly compared to the latest flagships
such as the Galaxy S5 and HTC One M8. However,
if you can be patient, the G Flex can take decent
photos. You'll typically get the best result if you use
Photo captured
with standard
settings

23/04/2014 17:56
Photo
captured
with HDR
the HDR mode and we also found the phone coped

well in low light if you have a steady hand.
A range of shooting modes includes Burst Shot,
Sports and Night. We're not so bothered about
Beauty Shot and Dual Camera (a selfie slapped over a
regular photo).
The G Flex can shoot full-HD video at 30- and
60fps, and can even turn its hand to 4K recording.
A front-facing 2.1Mp camera offers decent quality for
selfies and can shoot video in full-HD.
Software
The G Flex runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, but an
update to 4.4 KitKat is rolling out in Korea and
should make its way overseas soon. We've
upgraded our LG G2 to the latest version and
there are minimal changes.
LG has put a lot of work into its Android user
interface, adding lots of additional features that
23/04/2014 17:56
will come in handy. The

interface is stylish and
comes with some decent
wallpapers and useful
widgets such as the task
manager. We're not so
keen on the cartoon-style
app icons, though.
The notification bar
has plenty going on and
can get pretty messy with
a few things toggled on.
With Quick Remote and
QSlide switched on, any
notifications are off the
bottom of the screen.
That's the price for
features, though, but it's easy enough to have them
there only when you're using them. We love the
useful sliders for screen brightness and volume.
There are plenty of customisation options, which
you'll find in the Display tab of the Settings menu.
These include screen-off effect (retro TV is the best),
screen swipe effect, font type, font size, smart screen
(keeps the screen on as long as you're looking at
it) and more. There's even different screen modes
and the ability to adjust the screen capture area for
screenshots. Good work LG.
As with the G2, the G Flex has a Guest mode so
others can't access your personal content and apps
which you might not want children to access. This
is accessed by an alternative lock pattern. You can
also switch on and off the screen with a double tap,
although it doesn't work every time.
23/04/2014 17:56
Since the screen is so big, an advantage is the

ability to use Dual Window to simultaneously view
two apps. If this doesn't tickle your fancy perhaps
Slide Aside will, which lets you save up to three
favourite apps with a three-finger gesture, making it
an alternative to the regular Android multi-tasking.
The list goes on with QSlide, which allows you to
run certain apps in a pop-out window and adjust the
transparency so you see what's behind.
LG seems to have realised that no-one will be able
to reach the top of the G Flex's screen, so it's added
an optional button to the navigation bar that will pull
down the bar and fling it back up for you. You can also
bunch the navigations to one side for easier onehanded operation.
Furthermore, you can adjust the position of the
LG G Flex's dial keypad, lockscreen PIN and
keyboard. The slight problem is that you wouldn't
necessarily know these features were there unless
you explore the settings menu.

23/04/2014 17:56
Its curved screen is too big and just

720p, offering no real benefits. Save some
money on this gimmick and get the G2
We love the amount of extra features LG offers with

its Android overlay and, although they can be a little
hard to find, the tutorial would be far too long if the
firm highlighted them all.
Battery life
A physically large smartphone such as the G Flex
gives the manufacturer the opportunity to install a
large battery. The G Flex has a 3500mAh capacity,
which is a fair amount larger than most handsets.
The G Flex has a standard battery saving mode
and, after 24 hours of regular usage, a little over
50 percent remained. This is one advantage of the
low-resolution screen.
Verdict
The LG G Flex has some decent hardware, including
a great camera, generous storage and excellent
software. But its curved screen is too big and just
720p, offering no real benefits. We'd save some
money on this gimmick and buy a proper phone such
as the LG G2.
23/04/2014 17:56
Sony Xperia
Z2 Tablet review
Sony's tablet is a true rival to the iPad Air
and other large-screen tablets
399 sony.co.uk
he Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet is out now, with a

starting price of 399 for the 16GB Wi-Fi-only
model. This scales up to 449 for the 32GB
Wi-Fi-only model, and 499 for the 16GB LTE model.
There's no 32GB tablet with cellular connectivity.
This is a well-priced device. As we'll discover in
our review, the Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet is a high-class
Android tablet, most closely comparable to Apple's
23/04/2014 17:56
iPad Air. The starting price is the same as Apple's

16GB Wi-Fi-only iPad, and the 32GB Sony tablet is
cheaper by 30. The 16GB LTE Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
costs the same as Apple's equivalent iPad.
Shop around and you can get the Xperia Z2 Tablet
cheaper, too. All of which means that the price is right
for a premium tablet. But whether you choose to buy
will depend on what follows in our Xperia Z2 Tablet
review. (For obvious reasons we will be comparing to
the iPad Air at various points in this review.)
Build quality, design

Straight out of the box we are smitten by the Xperia
Z2 Tablet. It is the thinnest and lightest 10in tablet
you can buy noticeably thinner and lighter than
the iPad Air, which is itself famously easy to hold and
carry. The Xperia Z2 Tablet weighs just 426g or
439g if you opt for the LTE version.

23/04/2014 17:57
The Xperia Z2 Tablet is waterproof

and dust-resistant. It's built to
last and feels so
It's exceptionally thin, too, at just 6.4mm. Again,
that's thinner than the iPad Air and any other 7in or
10in tablet you can name.
And it matters, not just for reasons of tablet
oneupmanship. Holding the Xperia Z2 Tablet feels
great, despite the large, 10.1in display, and for lengthy
periods of time in standing, sitting and lying positions.
Previously we have preferred 7in tablets such as
the Nexus 7 or iPad mini, simply because the bigger
tablets feel to bulky to hold when watching movies
or reading books. But you could spend hours using
the Xperia Z2 Tablet without wrist-strain, even when
reading in bed. That's a big win.
It doesn't, of course, solve the problem of having
to carry your 10in tab in a bag where a Kindle-sized
7-incher can slip into a coat pocket but the trade off
of larger screen to weight and bulk feels like a deal
worth making with the Xperia Z2.
And you can just sling this tablet into a bag, too.
The Xperia Z2 Tablet is waterproof and dust resistant.
It's built to last and feels so, constructed principally of
metal and glass, but with a rubbery outer coat around
the back and on the corners. That rear cover provides
grip but does get grubby with fingerprints, though.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and your
views may differ, but we think the Xperia 2 Tablet is a
good-looking device, too. It's a simple, stylish device.

23/04/2014 17:57
A slice of black or white tech sharing the same

rounded corners and metal frame as the Sony Xperia
Z2 smartphone but to our eyes at least looking
somewhat smarter for larger scale. Our complaint is
functional rather than stylistic, in that the bezel is a
little larger than we would like. We presume that this
is a trade-off in return for the incredible thinness (not
a phrase ever used about your author).
It's available in black or white. We tested and
prefer the black Xperia Tablet Z2.
Display
That design is of course built around a 10in display.
It's the bit you'll be looking at, so let's take a closer
look right now. The Xperia Z2 Tablet in fact sports
a full-HD 10.1in display. This packs a whopping
1920x1200-pixel resolution, giving it a pixel density
of 224ppi. That's up there with some pretty decent
smartphones, but not quite as sharp a display as the
market-leading iPad Air. It's an IPS display and the
aspect ratio is 16:10, so viewing angles are good
but there is a little screen space under utilised
when watching movies.
23/04/2014 17:57
Sony tells us that the Xperia Z2's display has been

given a colour boost thanks to TRILUMINOS and
Live Colour LED designed to increase the colour
accuracy, depth and gradation. Which is nice.
Of course, all that is so much window dressing.
What matters is that we found the Xperia Z2 Tablet's
display to be simply stunning. It displays crisp, vivid
colours. Watching TV and movies is great. Photos
are faithfully reproduced with great clarity but not
too much colour as you sometimes find with OLED
displays on smartphones. And text documents are
sharp, even when you zoom in.
The touchscreen responsive in use, bar the almost
imperceptible lag that is found on all Android devices
when compared directly with their iOS equivalents.
And from our initial roughhouse tests at least it seems
reasonably immune to scratching. Our only complaint
was that the display was all but impossible to see in
natural daylight.
Specification, performance
As you would expect at the premium end of the
market the Xperia Z2 Tablet is blessed with a strong
specification. It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801

23/04/2014 17:57
quad-core processor clocked at 2.3GHz the same

chip as the superfast Xperia Z2 smartphone. This
is a Krait 400 CPU with which you get Adreno 320
graphics. It's paired with 3GB RAM.
Other key specs include a massive 6000mAh
battery, and a MicroSD slot so you can add up
to 64GB of storage. Our 16GB model had 11.2GB
available to use out of the box.
It all adds up to a beast of a tablet. Despite the
thin and light shell the Xperia Z2 Tablet is a snappy
performer. We'll get into synthetic benchmarks in a
moment, but the most important thing to say is that
you will find the Z2 Tablet fast and responsive. As fast
and responsive as any Android device we have used,
even when placed under load.
Benchmarks are fun because they give you an idea
of where a tablet or smartphone ranks against its rival,
but take them with a pinch of salt. They are synthetic
test designed to give you a number, not hard-andfast rankings. None the less, the Xperia Z2 Tablet's
23/04/2014 17:57
benchmark performance backs up our subjective

experience of a superfast tablet mostly.
The exception was the SunSpider Javascript test
from which we got a decent but not amazing average
score of 1099ms. Lower is better in this test which
measures your browser's ability to handle Javascript,
and the iPad Air blitzes the Xperia Z2 Tablet with a
score a little faster than 400ms. We have to say that
we found web browsing on the Xperia Z2 tablet a
joyous experience, and only occasionally laggy. But
this is one to chalk up to the iPad.
We ran a GFXBench test to benchmark graphics
performance. In the T-Rex (onscreen) test we got
our best ever tablet result of 1,530 frames at 27fps
(averaged over three runs). The Xperia Z2 Tablet
will chew up and spit out even the most demanding
Android games, and beats out the iPad Air which
averaged 1,187 and 21fps.

23/04/2014 17:57
And then there is Geekbench 3. This is a somewhat

controversial all-round benchmark as some Android
manufacturers have been accused of designing
their devices to perform abnormally well in this test.
(Allegations they almost all deny, by the way.) So
make of this what you will, but the Xperia Z2 Tablet
smashed Geekbench 3 to bits in our tests. It returned
an average single-core result of 967, a more important
multi-core score of 2719. That's the fastest multi-core
result we've ever got from a 10in tablet, comparing
well with the iPad Air's 2703 points in multi-core
mode; and 1487 points for a single core.
All you can really take from this is the fact that
the Xperia Z2 Tablet is a fast and responsive tablet.
It really is.
Camera
It also has a pretty good camera, particularly for a

tablet. You'll find an 8.1Mp camera around the back.
This has autofocus and captures 3264 x 2448 pixel
images which look good on the Xperia Z2 Tablet's
display. Additional features include Exmor RS for
mobile, which is designed to help users take goodlooking shots in any light, as well as geo-tagging,
The Xperia smashed Geekbench 3 to bits

in our tests, with the fastest multi-core result
we've ever got from a 10in tablet
23/04/2014 17:57
touch focus, face- and smile detection, HDR and a

panorama. The rear-facing camera captures 1080p
video at 30fps.
Up front there is a 2Mp webcam for selfies and
video chat. Here are some test images and test video
footage, all taken from the rear-facing camera. Click
to view at full size. One problem we had was that we
Photo captured found it difficult to see what was on the screen when
with standard
settings taking photos in natural daylight.
Connectivity, accessories
Connectivity options on the Xperia Z2 Tablet include
NFC. There's wireless charging with supported
accessories, as well as the more standard and useful
charging and connecting to your PC via USB. The
LTE version takes a micro-SIM and offers 2G GSM
850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900; 3G HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1700
/ 1900 / 2100 SGP541, SGP521, SGP551, 4G LTE 70
0/800/850/900/1700/1800/1900/2100/2600, and
LTE 850 / 900 / 1700 / 1800 / 1900 / 2100 / 2600.
23/04/2014 17:57
Obviously the usefulness and availability varies by

territory (we tested the Wi-Fi version so couldn't
speak to the efficacy of the Xperia Z2 Tablet as a
cellular device).
Wireless connects via dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac.
Other features include Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, and Wi-Fi
hotspot. And you get Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP peerto-peer connectivity.
As mentioned there is an SD card slot. Sony says
that the combination of Digital Noise Cancelling,
front-facing stereo speakers with S-Force Front
Surround and ClearAudio+ for recording means a
significantly enhanced audio experience. We think it
sounds okay, but no better than you would expect of
a decent tablet with front-facing speakers. There are
accelerometer-, gyro- and compass sensors, GPS and
an FM radio with RDS. In terms of accessories Sony
has released a speaker dock and remote control.
23/04/2014 17:57
Software
Sony's Xperia Z2 Tablet runs Android 4.4 KitKat, with
relatively little customisation. It does have Sony's
user interface over the top of vanilla Android. It's
a stylish customisation that thankfully doesn't take
over the OS in the way that Samsung and HTC's do.
KitKat is Google's best ever tablet OS. Feature rich,
easy to use and good to look at. It offers full access
to the Google Play app- and media stores, as well as
Sony's own stores and apps.
You can simply mount the Xperia Z2 Tablet as
external storage on your PC, but Sony also provides
software to make pairing and synching a little easier.
Battery life
We haven't yet had time to properly test the Xperia
Z2 Tablet's battery life and will update this review
when we do. Our early experience of using the Z2
Tablet suggest that it won't be a problem, despite
the killer power specs. That 6000mAh battery
cell should help. And, according to the company,
there's also the Battery STAMINA mode, designed
to prolong battery life. We'll test it and get back to
you. Find out more about which tablet to buy in our
tablets buying advice.
Verdict
The Xperia Z2 is a great-looking and well built
Android tablet. It is staggeringly thin and light for a
10in device, has a great screen, expandable storage
and good performance. We like the OS and the
camera. Indeed, our only issues are occasionally
laggy web browsing, and the fact that the screen is
poor under natural light.
23/04/2014 17:57

23/04/2014 17:57
Samsung Gear 2
smartwatch review
Samsung has turned its back on Android for its
second-generation smartwatch, but was it right to do so?
299 samsung.com/uk

23/04/2014 17:57
he wearable-tech market is booming, with

more smartwatches and fitness trackers
launching all the time. Along with the Galaxy
S5 smartphone, Samsung has launched a trio of
wearable gadgets consisting of the Gear 2, Gear 2
Neo and Gear Fit.
The Gear 2 is the top of range model and as
such has a premium price tag. You'll have to splash
out a whopping 299 for this smartwatch, which is
considerably more expensive than most. For example,
for the same money you could buy three Sony
SmartWatch 2s at just 99 each.
Before we even start looking at the Gear 2 in detail
it's worth pointing out that the device is compatible
only with selected Samsung smartphones 17 of
them, including the Samsung Galaxy S5, Galaxy Note
3, Galaxy S4 mini and Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition).
Design & build

We didn't like the bulky design of the Galaxy Gear
and things haven't improved much with the Gear 2.
The device is only marginally thinner and lighter at
10.1mm and 68g. The weight means you can't forget
it's on your arm and the size means it's difficult to

23/04/2014 17:57
find under some clothing and even if you can, the

large bump it creates looks a bit strange.
What the Gear 2 lacks in svelteness, it makes up for
in style. There's no Samsung logo, which is surprising
but gives the watch a clean and uninterrupted look.
It's well made and the brushed metal finish oozes
class. It's a great device for showing off.
It's nice to see the Gear 2 gaining the same IP67
certification as the Galaxy S5. This means it's fully
sealed from dust and water-resistant to a depth of
1m for up to 30 minutes. So, you can go running in
the desert while it rains without worrying about your
precious smartwatch.
A physical button sits below the screen and can
be used to switch on and off the Gear 2, but you
can also just tap the screen itself. However, built-in
sensors mean that the display magically comes to
23/04/2014 17:57
life when you turn your wrist to look at it. This means
you can easily check the time or a notification, but the
screen doesn't need to be left on constantly, therefore
draining the battery.
The Gear 2 charges by clipping on a small plastic
module with a microUSB port. It's a neat solution, but
forget that piece and you've got no way to recharge
the smartwatch.
Moving the camera from the strap to the main body
(compared to the Galaxy Gear) means that the strap is
now changeable for your own. That's always a good
design feature for smartwatches.
We took a look at the 'charcoal black' Gear 2, but
you can also buy it in 'gold brown' and 'wild orange'.
Official straps are available in four different colours.
Hardware & specs

Samsung has stuck with the same 1.63in
SuperAMOLED (320x320) screen that it used for the
Galaxy Gear, and that's no bad thing. The display
looks gorgeous with those classic Samsung eyepopping colours. The Gear 2 has an outdoor mode
23/04/2014 17:57
(level 6 brightness) that automatically switches off

after five minutes to conserve battery.
Inside is 4GB of storage for apps, photos, fitness
data and music you'll fill that up quickly if you want
to listen to music straight from the Gear 2. Also here is
a camera, infrared transmitter and heart-rate monitor.
Samsung says the Gear 2 offers a typical battery of
two or three days, while lighter users will get up to six.
In our own testing we found those claims accurate.
If you using the Gear 2 mainly for getting
notifications and switch off the device at night it will
last the best part of a week. Those regularly using the
camera, pedometer and heart-rate monitor will find
the Gear 2 will last a few days.
Features
Being top of the line and a typical Samsung
product the Gear 2 is packed with features. It's got
just as many bells and whistles as a Morris dancing
crew. However, many of them don't really need to
appear on a smartwatch.

23/04/2014 17:57
Like its predecessor the Gear 2 has a camera,

which is now positioned in the main unit rather than
the strap. It's a 2Mp camera with autofocus, which
can also record 720p video. Pictures are shot in a
square ratio and automatically sent to the connected
smartphone. Ok, it's in the realm of James Bond cool,
but in reality it's a novelty gimmick.
Another feature we must file in the novelty
category is the infrared (IR) transmitter. This sits next
to the camera and, using the WatchOn Remote app,
lets you control devices like your TV. It's not restricted
to Samsung devices, but the small screen makes for
a fiddly experience. At the end of the day, it's easier
to change the channel with an actual remote or your
smartphone if that has an IR blaster.
More handy, for fitness fanatics in any case, is the
built-in pedometer and heart-rate monitor. I've been
using the Gear 2 with the Galaxy S5, which means a
doubling up of these features, but they're more useful
in a watch than a smartphone.
You can go out for a run with
the Gear 2 alone, which is far
more convenient. The main
issue is that the heart-rate
monitor has to be in a specific
position to work properly.
You can even make and
receive calls with the Gear 2,
meaning there's a microphone
for recording your voice and a
tiny speaker so you can hear
the person on the other end.
It works, but we can't think
why you would want to have
23/04/2014 17:57
a conversation with someone over a watch.

It's awkward, the quality suffers, and don't even
try doing it in a noisy environment in essence
it's a hands-free style call.
Something the Gear 2 can do without the need
of a smartphone buddy is music playback you can
control what's playing on the companion device, too.
You can connect a pair of Bluetooth headphones
directly to the smartwatch and listen to your tunes.
You can choose what tunes to transfer to the Gear 2's
storage with the Gear Manager.
Software & apps

As you may have noticed, the Galaxy name has
been dropped from the name: the Gear 2 doesn't
run Android. Instead of Android, the Gear 2 (and
other Gear wearables) is powered by Samsung's
own Tizen OS.
Tizen is based on Linux, just like Android. In fact,
the interface is very similar to that of the Galaxy
Gear. It's clean, stylish and easy to use. Navigation
23/04/2014 17:57
is simple, with swipe gestures on the touchscreen.

Swiping left and right moves between pages of icons
and, although it's not intuitive, you quickly get used to
swiping down from the top of the screen to go back.
As with most smartwatches, you can customise
and control the Gear 2 with Samsung's Gear Manager
app, which you install on the companion smartphone.
Here you can choose different home screen styles,
clock faces, choose your notifications and various
other settings.
Moving from Android to Tizen means a backward
step in terms of third-party apps. While devices like
the Sony SmartWatch 2 have hundreds of apps to
download, the Gear 2 has only a handful, and most of
them are watch faces that cost 1.
Verdict
The Samsung Gear 2 is a stylish smartwatch packed
with features, but it has limited appeal due to
small list of compatible devices. It's still too bulky
and many of its features don't work well or are
unnecessary. It's reasonably expensive, too.
23/04/2014 17:57
How to undo updates

to Android apps
Go back to a previous version without rooting
your device. Here's how
f an app update has annoyed you because of

changes to the interface, removed certain features
or is full of bugs, you probably want to go back to
the previous version. Here are a couple of ways you
can undo an Android app update and revert to a
previous version.
Unless you've already installed some backup
software which keeps copies of each version of an
app, undoing an update isn't straightforward. Android
doesn't have a handy roll back button.
You could factory reset your smartphone or tablet
to go back to the original system apps, but that wont
help you for other apps youve installed as they will
be completely removed and your only option is to
reinstall the latest version.
Find the APK file

One way you can go back to a previous version of
an app is to find the installation file for that version.
Android uses APK files for apps, so called because
of their .apk file ending.
As long as you know which version number you
need, you can search the web for the app name,
version number and APK. For example, if you wanted
to find version 1.5 of BBC iPlayer, youd search for
BBC iPlayer 1.5 APK.
23/04/2014 17:57
Be careful where you download

files, though, as you could
inadvertently download malware.
If you have an older version
of the app on another device,
you should be able to extract
the APK file from it. If that device
is rooted, you can simply grab
the APK file from the /data/app/
folder. Otherwise, you can try an
app such as My Backup Pro (3)
to make a backup of the app on
a microSD card in that device
(assuming it has one).
Once you have the file you can
uninstall the newer version of the
app from your device, then copy
the older APK file you found to the
phone or tablet using Windows Explorer. Copy it to
either a new folder or the existing Download folder.
Then, youll need a File Explorer app to find the file
on your Android device, at which point you can tap on
it and install it. Note that you will need to tick the box
somewhere in your devices settings menu to allow
the installation of apps from 'unknown sources'.
Automatically back up app versions

If all of the above fails, theres really not much you
can do. To avoid ending up in the same situation
in the future, its worth installing an app such as
AppMonster Pro Backup Restore (2.50).
This automatically creates a backup each time you
install a new app, meaning youll always have a copy
of the APK files for every version of an app.
23/04/2014 17:57
Improve your Android

phone's battery life
A smartphone makes a rubbish hub for your digital life if
its battery is out of juice. Here's how to extend runtime
ts the early afternoon, and your Android phone

is already running on empty. A smartphone is
supposed to be the hub of your digital life, but it
cant do that very well when the battery has run dry.
You probably shouldnt wait until your phone has
failed you at a critical moment before you figure out
whats destroying your battery life theres no better
time than now to track down the culprit. If you're
lucky, you might even be able to fix the issue without
sacrificing functionality.
23/04/2014 17:58
Wakelocks and misery

Android has gotten much better at managing
background processes in the last few years. Anyone
who has used Google's platform since the early days
can tell you how bad things used to be when task
killers were a necessity. Even though Android as a
whole isn't subject to the same horrible battery life
issues, the wrong combination of apps can still break
Androids elegant process management scheme.
Conventional wisdom used to be that you should
open the multitasking interface and kill any application
youre not using to save battery life, and unfortunately
this superstition still persists. But Android knows how
to manage background tasks, and swiping apps out of
the multitasking interface only closes the foreground
process. If an app is indeed causing issues, it's usually
the background process that's doing it. This sort of
micromanagement will only waste time.
The stock Android battery use menu can be

helpful, but it only tells part of the story. Most apps
show up here because you're actually using them a
lot that's to be expected. This menu merely shows
you the system process and app packages that are
23/04/2014 17:58
using juice, but the 'Awake' and 'Screen on' lines are
the most important. If you have a lot more awake time
than screen on, something might be keeping your
phone from sleeping. This is called a wakelock, and
it's the number one enemy of your battery life.
When an app or service needs to run a process,
it can wake the device with an alarm. The wakelock
mode keeps the CPU awake so the app can do its
business. This is usually no big deal: the app finishes
up, and the device slips back into deep sleep.
Conflicts and bugs can cause wakelocks to persist,
essentially keeping your phone from sleeping at all.
In order to figure out what's messing with the battery,
we need to find the root cause of this baffling case of
smartphone insomnia.
Solving the case

It might not be immediately obvious that a phone is
in wakelock for long periods. By all appearances,
the screen is off and it seems to be asleep like it
should be. One clue that something is going wrong
is excess heat generation. When the CPU is cranked
up instead of in deep sleep, the device might be

23/04/2014 17:58
If PowerManagerService is no longer
eating up most of your sleep time, you've
cracked the case
noticeably warmer than usual when you pick it up.
You'll need to do a little detective work.
One quick and easy way to watch for a phone that
won't sleep is to use an app like System Monitor to
track CPU clock speed. This app breaks down CPU
activity as a percentage. Unless you've been using
the device almost constantly, Deep Sleep should
be the largest part of the chart. If not, you've probably
got a misbehaving app or system process.
You'll have to dig a little deeper in order to sort out
the exact cause of your shortened battery life. The
best app for this is BetterBatteryStats. The developer
posts free beta builds on the XDA forums, but it's
also for sale in Google Play. Rooted users see more
information in the app, but you can still get some data
on wakelocks with almost all devices.
Just give the app a few hours to calibrate, and then
filter for Kernel Wakelocks and Since unplugged. If
you see a process up near the top of that list with
a lot of wakelock time, that's the guilty party. Kernel
wakelocks are system processes like suspend_
backoff or wlan. BBS BetterBatteryStats sometimes
includes links to more information about wakelocks
with some ideas for fixing them. Otherwise, you can
search for information on the exact system process
and find a likely solution. Often, a reboot will knock
some sense into your phone and clear this up.

23/04/2014 17:58
If you suspect a misbehaving app on your device,

check for the PowerManagerService listing. This is
a catchall for so-called partial wakelocks caused by
apps. Rooted users can see the partial wakelocks
in the app, but everyone else will have to do some
detective work by comparing recently installed
apps and the onset of the PowerManagerService
issue. To confirm, uninstall suspect apps, create
a custom reference point in BBS, put the phone
to sleep, then check the wakelocks a little later. If
PowerManagerService is no longer eating up most of
your sleep time, youve cracked the case.
More often than not, the root of your problem will
be some app you installed. The easiest way to deal
with the issue is to leave the offending app or game

uninstalled, but maybe you want to use the app
despite its battery sucking behaviour. In that case, you
need a way to end the process safely. Android has
a built-in way of hibernating processes, and you can
easily trigger it with an app called Greenify.
Use Greenify to identify the problematic apps, and
hit the hibernate button after you're done using them.
Greenify works best with root access, but you can
also use the in-app button to trigger hibernation.
23/04/2014 17:58
23/04/2014 17:58

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