ReviewNex

iPad Air SUPER REVIEW

iPad Air SUPER REVIEW

Apple's new iPad shows all you need to know about its changed approach to tablets - with a 43% thinner bezel and a 28% lighter device, the iPad Air is championing the 'easier to live with' ideal. …

31 Mar 2014

Best browser 2014: which should you be using?

Best browser 2014: which should you be using?

Competition among browsers is more fierce than ever. Chrome and Firefox seem like they release 72 new versions every week, Microsoft has redesigned Internet Explorer to make it finger-friendly, and a…

31 Mar 2014

The Best Free Software for PC

The Best Free Software for PC

The best software doesn't always come with a price tag attached. There are a host of free PC programs available on the web that can improve the way you work and play. …

31 Mar 2014

Samsung Chromebook 2 review

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More laptops based on Google's Chrome OS are hitting the market and Samsung's second generation of Chromebook is testament to the resolute approach Google's partners have adopted.</div>
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The Korean company had its Chromebook 2 11-inch and 13-inch Chromebooks on display at its booth at CeBIT 2014 in Germany, two models that it announced earlier this month.</div>
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The new Chromebooks (XE503-C12 and XE503-C32 respectively) will sell alongside the original one, bringing the total number of inventory units on the market to three. Prices in the UK have yet to be announced but we expect the 11-inch to retail for around £250 and the high-end, 13-inch model to hit £350.</div>
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Faux leather</h3>
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The two models come with a faux-leather finish at the back of the screen. The material used is likely to divide opinions, as it did on its introduction at IFA last year with the Galaxy Note 3.</div>
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We briefly handled the two flavours of Samsung's Chromebook 2. As a reminder, both come with an octo-core Samsung Exynos processor, possibly the Exynos 5410, which has four Cortex-A15 and four Cortex-A7 subprocessors in the dynamically scaling CPU configuration known as big.LITTLE. The A15 subprocessors are clocked at 1.9GHz on the 11-inch model and at 2.1GHz on the 13-inch one.</div>
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Apart from size and keyboard layout, the other major difference is screen resolution: the 11-inch model spans 1,366x768 pixels while the bigger Chromebook has a full HD resolution which falls short of Google's high-endPixel Chromebook but is still significantly higher than the rest of the competition.</div>
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That particular model was not working properly which meant that we couldn't visually compare the screen quality on both Chromebooks. Expect the 13-inch model to be marginally sharper as it boosts a higher pixel density (170 vs 142ppi).</div>
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Hangout certified</h3>
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These new Chromebooks are also the first to get an official Google Hangout certification. This means that Samsung has equipped both of them with dual array microphones, a 720p HD webcam and video processing capabilities.</div>
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The rest of the specs read as follows: 4GB of RAM, 16GB onboard storage, a webcam, HDMI port, two USB ports, a SD card slot and PowerVR graphics.</div>
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Battery life is rated at eight hours on the smaller Chromebook and slightly higher for the larger one. The model on the booth however showed only six hours capacity when fully charged.</div>
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Compared to the original Chromebook, the ports have been moved to the sides and the chassis has been modified with a larger touchpad.</div>
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The keyboard appears to be the only major letdown. The keys, while reasonably well spaced, were far too loose for our liking. Put it this way, we could hear the keys rattle when we shook the Chromebook (not that this is something you'd do often).</div>
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Matte plastic</h3>
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The overall finish of both laptops is what you'd expect from a comparable entry-level, Windows-based laptop with matte plastic being the main material used in the chassis.</div>
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Oddly enough, the 11-inch model is thicker than its bigger counterpart (16.8mm vs 16.5mm) although lighter (1.2Kg and 1.4 Kg respectively).</div>
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Perhaps as a sign of the Windows-isation of the platform (pardon the neologism), Samsung also bundled a number of Chrome apps, in a way similar to how PC manufacturers bundle 'bloatware'.</div>
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That said, two of them at least, Wunderlist Pro and Airdroid, are genuinely useful for both business and consumer users.</div>
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Early verdict</h3>
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My encounter with the Chromebook 2 was brief and underwhelming. The faux-leather back is purely aesthetic and adds nothing to the functionality. Other than the extra onboard memory and the upgraded system-on-chip, there's no major improvement to the 11in model. The new 13in model adds a bigger screen and a much higher resolution but that's it. The good news though is that these new Chromebooks will almost certainly bring down the price of the existing Series 3 model. We will get a full review up shortly.</div>
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Samsung Chromebook 2 review

More laptops based on Google's Chrome OS are hitting the market and Samsung's second generation of Chromebook is testament to the resolute approach Google's partners have adopted. The Korean company …

31 Mar 2014

Windows 8.1 : what's in Microsoft's latest Windows update

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It would be fair to say, at this point, that Windows 8 has not been a success. Beyond the typically harsh technology community, even the everyday users of Windows 8 are not content.</div>
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The fragmentation between the elements of Windows 7 that made it into Windows 8 and the more 'Modern UI'/Metro elements are confusing, with basic Microsoft products such as the Office suite awkwardly flipping between the two states.</div>
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Things that people loved, such as the Start Menu, have been removed and replaced with a more Windows Phone-style Start screen, signaling a change of focus on Microsoft's part from desktop to tablet – a change that is not intrinsically good.</div>
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Thankfully, Microsoft has been listening and produced Windows 8.1, which made amends for some of the features that were omitted, or removed, from previous versions of Windows. Unfortunately, 8.1 didn't go all the way in fixing Windows as it currently is, which is why Microsoft is going to release Windows 8.1 Update 1 (a mouthful, to say the least).</div>
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A copy of Update 1 was accidentally leaked by Microsoft itself on its software updates page but will be formally announced at Build 2014. Here we'll take a look at what's coming up.</div>
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What's new in Update 1</h3>
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With Update 1, Microsoft has aimed to create an operating system that will work better on low-range hardware, requiring only 1GB of RAM and 16GB of mass storage to run (Windows 8.1 required at least 2GB of RAM and 32GB of mass storage).</div>
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The focus is obviously on spreading Windows across as many PCs as possible, especially in business where Microsoft is considered to be losing its edge against Android and Apple tablets and smartphones.</div>
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Microsoft has also moved the software power button onto the home screen for easier access, as well as chafing the right-click behaviour when clicking on the Live Tiles or Modern UI elements of the OS. Right-clicking now brings up a regular Windows context menu, even in Modern UI apps, as opposed to the options pane as before.</div>
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OS mismatch</h3>
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Unfortunately this introduces yet more fragmentation, as the new contextual options don't always match those within the app. While many users won't notice, it does further increase the sense that Microsoft has essentially bolted two OSes onto each other and called it a day.</div>
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With Windows 8, Microsoft chose to rather turn their backs on keyboard and mouse users, choosing instead to hastily focus on the touchscreen aspect of the OS. Update 1 goes some way to retrace their steps and make features which were previously difficult to access with a mouse far easier to find.</div>
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We've used a Microsoft Surface Pro 2 with both fingers and a mouse, so it's easy to see how neglected laptop and desktop users would feel. Some operations that were easily completed with your finger would take multiple mouse movements and clicks before being completed on a desktop.</div>
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Desktop boot</h3>
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Another added bonus for desktop users is the ability to boot directly to the desktop, meaning you can use Windows 8.1 as you would have used Windows 7.</div>
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Internet Explorer also shows the tabs and address bar by default, again cutting down the clicks. Clicking on photos and videos in the desktop mode opens them in the desktop, not Metro, apps, too.</div>
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Not all of Windows 8.1 Update 1's changes are positive, however. Microsoft have decided to make the taskbar accessible throughout the OS, regardless of which environment — Modern UI or classic Windows — you're in.</div>
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Summoning the taskbar in Modern UI apps forces the taskbar to overlay over the bottom of the content, obscuring some of it from view and click-ability. Not only is the implementation ugly, but it is also a usability nightmare and something Microsoft should address before releasing Update 1 to the public.</div>
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OneDrive</h3>
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SkyDrive has been rebranded to OneDrive and is making its debut in Update 1, however very little has changed from the SkyDrive app in Windows 8.1.</div>
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While Windows 8.1 Update 1 doesn't address all of the issues that users have with the operating system, it certainly goes some way towards amending some of the more gaping wholes. Desktop, and laptop, is now easier with the integration of the two modes — desktop and Metro — becoming a little closer.</div>
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The fact that Microsoft is even considering an Update 1 is a sign of progress, having left previous OSes for years without major updates. Choosing to follow Apple's yearly update calendar will serve Microsoft well in the eyes of their users, and that's what matters.</div>
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Windows 8.1 : what's in Microsoft's latest Windows update

It would be fair to say, at this point, that Windows 8 has not been a success. Beyond the typically harsh technology community, even the everyday users of Windows 8 are not content. The fragmentation…

31 Mar 2014

Western Digital My Passport Pro 2TB review

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Portability seems to be ever more important to creative pros, with powerful laptops such as the MacBook Pro with Retina display, HP Envy TouchSmart 15 even the ludicrously powerful Aorus X7 gaming machine all coming in at under an inch thick, and often shedding as much weight as possible.</div>
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Being thin and light often means shedding a hard drive in favor of solid-state storage. That's great for performance, but it means paying through the nose if you want a lot of space. For the MacBook Pro in particular, storage comes at a hefty premium – to get a 1TB SSD, you have to buy at least the highest-end 13-inch MacBook Pro, and then add a minimum of £400 (about $644, AU$719) to the price.</div>
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But if you're working with lots of massive files – and especially video – on the move, you often can't do without space, and sacrificing performance isn't an option.</div>
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On the desktop, RAIDs of hard drives can offer a balance between hard drive prices and SSD performance, and Western Digital is the first company to bring that to portable computing.</div>
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The My Passport Pro is a Thunderbolt drive that powers itself over a single Thunderbolt cable, and contains two 1TB hard drives. You can choose to have these arranged for performance as a striped RAID 0 array, meaning that you get to use the full 2TB of space and also get the maximum possible transfer speeds.</div>
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Alternatively, you can have them as a mirrored RAID 1 array, meaning that you sacrifice performance and can only effectively use half of the storage space, but you get safety, because every file is stored on both drives, so you don't lose anything if one fails.</div>
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Both of these options are useful to pros, so it's up to you which one is right for your use. Western Digital has included a Mac app that makes it easy to switch between the options, or to check the drive for errors and erase it.</div>
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Portability really is the key thing here. The unit is about 140mm (5.5 inches) long, 80mm (3.15 inches) wide and 27mm (1.06 inches) thick. It weighs about 460g (1.01 pounds), which isn't overly heavy, but when combined with its small size makes it feel extremely dense. Its solid aluminum exterior adds to this – it feels like a really solid unit to hold.</div>
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The Thunderbolt cable is built into the unit, and when not in use wraps all the way around the outside in a rubber groove. There's no Thunderbolt passthrough here (adding one would require an external power supply – a mains adapter – making it less portable), so if you've got a string of devices, this needs to go at the end.</div>
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There's a fan at the rear of the unit, next to where the cable attaches, along with a tiny LED to indicate power. It's the only indicator light of any kind on the unit.</div>
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Its silver and black colors reflect its premium standing, which is also of course reflected in the price. At £239 ($300, around AU$430), it's not cheap, but it's not totally unreasonable. There's also a 4TB version available, which will set you back £349 ($430, about AU$627).<span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); color: white; line-height: 19.695999145507813px;">It's not cheap, but you get a lot of performance for your money</span>The Western Digital My Passport Pro has two RAID options, each of which is useful: striped for speed, or mirrored for security. We took benchmarks for both configurations. The figures given below are the average results after five test runs.</div>
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<strong>Striped RAID 0</strong></div>
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Blackmagic Disk Speed Test<br />5GB stress test<br />Write 204.68 MB/s<br />Read 204.94 MB/s</div>
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QuickBench<br />Small files (<1MB) average<br />Sequential read 162.257 MB/s<br />Sequential write 142.61 MB/s<br />Random read 19.16 MB/s<br />Random write 41.09 MB/s</div>
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Finder<br />2.5GB file transfer<br />22 seconds</div>
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<strong>Mirrored RAID 1</strong></div>
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Blackmagic Disk Speed Test<br />5GB stress test<br />Write 104.12 MB/s<br />Read 108.08 MB/s</div>
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QuickBench<br />Small files (<1MB) average<br />Sequential read 73.225 MB/s<br />Sequential write 77.877 MB/s<br />Random read 18.406 MB/s<br />Random write 25.713 MB/s</div>
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Finder<br />2.5GB file transfer<br />24 seconds</div>
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Our My Passport Pro sample came configured in the striped RAID 0 configuration, so that's what we started our tests with. We were impressed with the results.</div>
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Transfer speeds peaked at over 200 megabytes per second, which is superb for a portable drive, or at least one that isn't an SSD. The much lower speeds for random read/writes of small files are no surprise – it's not what hard drives are good at. But with the striped RAID 0 setting spreading the data across both drives and using as much Thunderbolt bandwidth as it can, you're looking at potentially double the data transfer speed compared to a single-drive device, such as the Freecom Mobile Drive Mg 1TB.</div>
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Blackmagic's test suite indicated that the drive should be suitable for professional, uncompressed video work up to 1080p (10-bit YUV 4:2:2, if you care about such things) and we had no problems using it as a primary drive when working.</div>
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It's true that you get better performance with SSD-based drives (typically around 300 MB/s, so a 50% increase – not insignificant) but not in anything close to this kind of price-per-gigabyte ratio. Even a single 1TB SSD will set you back as much as the 4TB version of this drive.</div>
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Set to mirrored RAID 1, it's no surprise that speeds drop to around half – you've gone from spreading the data over two drives to effectively just one, after all (technically, it's all going on the second drive since you're mirroring, but that doesn't help with the speeds).</div>
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You might have noticed that our 2.5GB single file transfer time was almost identical in both cases, though – a reminder that individual real-world situations don't always reflect what the benchmarks say.</div>
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Switching between the two RAID modes is easy using WD tools. These come loaded on the hard drive in DMG form. You can switch RAID modes, run SMART tests and erase the whole thing easily enough. There are no encryption tools as part of WD's suite, though.</div>
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In use, the drive is quiet at first, but once you start using its two drives intensely, the fan at the back kicks up a pretty notable whirr – it's high-pitched, and yes, somewhat intrusive. It'll stand out even in a busy office environment. It's understandable (the unit gets pretty warm even with the fan at full whine), but it means that if you're doing any kind of audio editing, you'd better have remembered your headphones.</div>
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Western Digital My Passport Pro 2TB review

Portability seems to be ever more important to creative pros, with powerful laptops such as the MacBook Pro with Retina display, HP Envy TouchSmart 15 even the ludicrously powerful Aorus X7 gaming ma…

30 Mar 2014

HTC One M8

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So it's all the more impressive that HTC, fresh from making the best-looking phone of 2013, has managed to make the HTC One (M8), a phone crammed full of power and great features while improving the design that won it so many accolades.</div>
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The poor naming aside, the One (M8) is a phone that takes the superb DNA of last year's device, improves it in nearly every area and then packs it full of all the latest technology...and still finds space to pack in a microSD card slot.</div>
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On top of that the chassis has been retooled to now be made of 90% metal, up from around 70% last year, and the result is a brushed aluminium design that seems compelling the second you lay eyes on it.</div>
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Let's go back in time a little bit here: when it launched the HTC One X - let's not get into the fact that this company needs to employ a whole new team dedicated to naming products - the company was in a nosedive.</div>
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From the heights of the HTC Desire, the world's first true iPhone competitor, it had fallen dramatically, and sales were in the toilet.The brand needed a reboot, and the HTC One was just that. It wasn't a commercial success in the same vein as the iPhone 5S or the Samsung Galaxy S4, but it was critically superior.</div>
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So HTC had a tough choice: make a sequel that was mere evolution, an HTC One S if you will, which would make the world realise it truly believed in its design trajectory, or reinvent the wheel again, try and different kind of impressive phone and run the risk of offering up a flop?</div>
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Somehow the company has managed to navigate these choppy waters and create something that stands astride both categories.</div>
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The HTC One (M8) is an even better designed device that takes the principles of the original One, expands them in the right places and adds in some more HTC sauce here and there.</div>
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The result offers up something that can compete with Samsung on the technological front yet still stand toe-to-toe with Apple, arguably the producer of some of the best-looking devices of all time.</div>
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Of course, the One (M8) isn't a phone that's going to be to everyone's tastes. It's expensive, coming in at least £500 SIM free (AU$899, around US$820), but that's to be expected from a flagship phone like this.</div>
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You'll need to be ready to pay top dollar for the HTC One (M8), but once you hold it you'll accept that it deserves to command such a premium.</div>
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There are other things that will put off some too: the fact that the screen is now 5 inches mean this is a larger device, one that can take two hands to operate at times, and it's even bigger than the 2013 version as a result.</div>
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HTC needs to sort out its efforts in the mid-to-low smartphone arena, but that's a topic for a different day. The HTC One (M8) is a phone that's supposed to offer the best of the smartphone market, one that will survive the onslaught of the iPhone 6 and the Galaxy S5, while preserving HTC's heritage and bringing the bottom line closer to something more healthy.</div>
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Through a clever combination of technology and design, it appears the company has managed to just do that - and in today's impossibly congested smartphone market (especially at the high end) that's something to be applauded.</div>
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Design</h3>
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As you can guess from the introduction, the HTC One (M8) is a phone that is as much about premium design as it is about packing in the latest version of Android and a decent processor.</div>
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The brand took great pains to point out that the One (M8) is a phone that builds on the heritage of last year's One, but improves in just about every arena. The metal chassis is still there, and the aluminium casing now makes up 90% of the frame, up from about 70% previously.</div>
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This is probably the most significant change, along with the fact the back and sides are now more curved, as it brings a really impressive feel in the hand. If the original One was characterised by first-time users saying 'Wow, that feels lovely' the next iteration takes that message further.</div>
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There will be very few brand-agnostic people that wander into their local phone emporium, pick up the HTC One (M8) and a couple of competitors, and find that the Taiwanese brand's new device is streets ahead in the design stakes - and I'd bet that most would be unable to resist a purchase after that.</div>
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The difference here between the One (M8) and the iPhone 5S - the two phones that lead the way in the design stakes - is weight and screen size. Having something that feels premium is incredibly important when you're spending so much on a phone per month, and while the iPhone is beautiful in its metal casing, it's too light to feel like you're getting something really premium.</div>
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There's a subconscious reaction when you pick up something for the first time, a natural expectation of how it might feel in the hand, and the HTC One (M8), with its 9.35mm thickness and 160g weight, marries those two very well.</div>
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It's no coincidence that smartphones are packing on the grams a little bit these days. Where around 120g was the fashion a couple of years ago, now we're seeing heavier phones as designers try to meet a new paradigm (plus all that new technology needs to go somewhere, after all).</div>
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Let's look at the actual design of the HTC One (M8) - and it's definitely equal parts evolution and revolution.</div>
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The flagship version will be this metallic grey, although a silver version that evokes the previous model and a champagne / rose gold option will be both available too. However, this brushed metal effect is stunning, and helps distance the One (M8) from its predecessor.</div>
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Holding it in the hand is a really pleasant experience, one that makes you feel like you're holding something you should spend a lot of money on.</div>
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Quite rightly some will baulk at the larger chassis, mostly down to the decision to include the Boomsound speakers above and below the screen, but once you've heard them in action you'll struggle not to agree that they're not a worthy trade-off.</div>
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The iPhone 5S and even the Galaxy S4 / Galaxy S5 have a more compact design language than the One (M8), which is larger thanks to the speaker addition, but overall I don't think this detracts from the overall effect.</div>
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The headphone jack has been moved to the bottom of the phone, which will anger some users. I still think this is an unintuitive place to add the port, as I've become used to having it at the top. Arguments that it makes it easier to slip in and out of the pocket don't hold water, and it makes the phone hard to hold in portrait when listening to music.</div>
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But I've got some really good news for you phone-lovers out there: the HTC One (M8) comes with a microSD slot! I thought this would never happen after the brand did away with the expansion last year, citing design reasons and a general lack of need thanks to the ubiquity of cloud storage (which is clearly still not true).</div>
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To hammer home that last point, HTC told me that it re-introduced the expandable memory as it was a) able to do so without compromising the design and b) it had heard from so many consumers that this was a real sticking point for not buying the original One.</div>
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It's always good to see a brand climb down when consumers ask for something, and now this means that there are no issues about filling your phone up with photos and home videos as well as music and movies.</div>
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The slot isn't that easy to access on the fly, as like the nanoSIM port it needs a small tool to pop open the drawer. That might be annoying for the more hardcore photographer, but most people will rarely, if ever, hot swap cards, so it just offers a cheap and easy way to increase the 16GB / 32GB onboard storage by up to 128GB.</div>
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The top of the phone is all plastic still, and this is to with antenna technology as well as allowing the infrared signal to control home theatre devices.</div>
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This, combined with the thin plastic strips on the rear of the phone, allow for phone and Wi-Fi signal to permeate through the chassis... when you hear engineers talk about how hard it is to make a metal phone that can still connect to other devices, the design language of the One is even more impressive.</div>
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The phone isn't perfect on the One (M8) though - although the following points are more little irritations than anything that undoes the work of the overall design ethos.</div>
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One area I'm really happy about is the button travel, as the original One has very flat keys that were hard to find and press. The One (M8) improves on that massively, making everything easier to find in the pocket or bag and tap.</div>
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However, the keys still feel a little plastic and have a little bit of wiggle when rocked back and forth. This is the same criticism I had with the first One, and it got sorted after a couple of months, but I'd expect a phone of this calibre to have every part of the device locked into place - a rattle ruins things a little bit.</div>
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The power button is still on the top of the phone, which I can live with, but it's been moved from the left to the right side. I've argued with a few people about this, as it seems that some people prefer this orientation where others find it incredibly hard to hit.</div>
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I'm in the latter camp, as my finger naturally sits on the left of the phone and I found it very easy to unlock the first One. Now not only do I have to shuffle along to find the power button, but whenever I do so I accidentally engage the volume key, meaning I always keep turning the ringtone up and down.</div>
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This was probably the most infuriating part of the HTC One (M8) - which isn't a bad thing to have at all, but is a poor thing to happen over and over again.</div>
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I'm also a bit perplexed about the fast HTC decided to drop the capacitive buttons (understandable given Android 4.4 KitKat's love of on-screen keys) yet keep the same big black bar that contains the HTC logo. This feels like a lot of wasted real estate on the front of the phone, and could have allowed the brand to keep the same footprint as the previous model if it had found another place to chuck its name.</div>
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The reason for this is probably due to the need to pack in the necessary internal components while maintaining the Boomsound speakers, but given the level of intelligence on show here when it comes to packaging the device, it seems like a missed trick.</div>
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But before you get too downhearted, here's the upshot: the HTC One (M8) is one of the most beautiful phones ever made, and that's a statement that's even more impressive given we were saying the same thing about the device this time last year.</div>
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The improved use of metal in the chassis really works, and the shape is updated without losing any of the heritage of last year's popular model. The addition of a microSD slot is inspired, and while I can't say I'll ever get on board with the headphone jack being on the bottom, it's something that you can live with.</div>
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In short, if you want a phone that looks the absolute business in the smartphone world, AND builds in some top-end components, I'd wager you won't do much better in 2014 unless Sir Jony Ive has something absolutely spectacular up his sleeve.</div>
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HTC One M8

So it's all the more impressive that HTC, fresh from making the best-looking phone of 2013, has managed to make the HTC One (M8), a phone crammed full of power and great features while improving the …

30 Mar 2014

Moto X review

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<strong style="display: block; font-size: 16px; padding: 10px 0px;">Ratings in depth</strong><br />
<figure style="border: 1px solid rgb(178, 178, 178); clear: both; cursor: pointer; margin: -1px 0px 20px; overflow-x: hidden; position: relative; width: 178px;"><img alt="Motorola Moto X" src="http://cdn1.mos.techradar.futurecdn.net//art/techradar/Reviews%20scores/Design/design_4-580-90.jpg" style="border: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto; vertical-align: middle; width: 178px;" width="580" /></figure><figure style="border: 1px solid rgb(178, 178, 178); clear: both; cursor: pointer; margin: -1px 0px 20px; overflow-x: hidden; position: relative; width: 178px;"><img alt="Motorola Moto X" src="http://cdn2.mos.techradar.futurecdn.net//art/techradar/Reviews%20scores/Features/features_4-580-90.jpg" style="border: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto; vertical-align: middle; width: 178px;" width="580" /></figure><figure style="border: 1px solid rgb(178, 178, 178); clear: both; cursor: pointer; margin: -1px 0px 20px; overflow-x: hidden; position: relative; width: 178px;"><img alt="Motorola Moto X" src="http://cdn1.mos.techradar.futurecdn.net//art/techradar/Reviews%20scores/Performance/performance_4-580-90.jpg" style="border: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto; vertical-align: middle; width: 178px;" width="580" /></figure><figure style="border: 1px solid rgb(178, 178, 178); clear: both; cursor: pointer; margin: -1px 0px 20px; overflow-x: hidden; position: relative; width: 178px;"><img alt="Motorola Moto X" src="http://cdn0.mos.techradar.futurecdn.net//art/techradar/Reviews%20scores/Usability/usability_4-580-90.jpg" style="border: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto; vertical-align: middle; width: 178px;" width="580" /></figure><figure style="border: 1px solid rgb(178, 178, 178); clear: both; cursor: pointer; margin: -1px 0px 20px; overflow-x: hidden; position: relative; width: 178px;"><img alt="Motorola Moto X" src="http://cdn1.mos.techradar.futurecdn.net//art/techradar/Reviews%20scores/Value/value_3-580-90.jpg" style="border: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto; vertical-align: middle; width: 178px;" width="580" /></figure></div>
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It was August of 2013 when Motorola released its first all-new phone under the stewardship of Google, and the Moto X caused quite a stir.</div>
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While the Nexus line of phones was always meant to be the showcase for Google's vision of the ultimate Android device, it felt like with Motorola it could show how influence rather than control would bring out the inner beauty of Android.</div>
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Five months on Motorolafinally gave the first progeny of its relationship with Google a wider release, so here it is on official UK release: the Moto X.</div>
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Without a doubt, one of the most widely discussed and generally lauded phones of the second half of 2013 has arrived, but how does it fare today in the ever-evolving smartphone market?</div>
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When it was first announced, there was an almost audible intake of breath as it became clear that Motorola was going to try and sell a phone with apparently mid-range specs at a high-end price.</div>
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However, this did something of a disservice to the overall aims Motorola had for the Moto X. It is not a device that cares about specs, it is all about the experience.</div>
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In the US, Motorola launched a novel concept called Moto Maker, which allows you to customise the look of your phone.</div>
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It is quite possible to get a white fronted, pink backed Moto X with blue buttons and a custom engraving too. Unfortunately, Moto Maker hasn't found its way to the UK - although it is tipped to arrive in March 2014.</div>
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This bold gamble does not appear to has paid dividends for Motorola with the Moto X, evidenced by its numerous price drops in the US.</div>
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Considering the track record, it's a little bit of a surprise that Motorola is bringing the Moto X in at a relatively high recommended retail price point of £389.</div>
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Considering the price of the better-specified and larger screened Nexus 5 is just £299, you have to wonder if this makes sense.</div>
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The pricing of the Moto X on contract puts it in a similar category to the HTC One Mini and Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini, not quite the lofty comparisons that Motorola would want us to be making.</div>
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Pricing is not the only issue for the Moto X: it simply does not have high-end specs any more. The beating heart of the phone is essentially a 1.7GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset backed by 2GB of RAM.</div>
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Compared to today's quad-core 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 rival, this is a little lacking, and definitely puts it in the mid-range, at least on paper.</div>
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A 2200mAh battery is sealed inside the body and there is no microSD expansion so the standard 16GB model - what you get for the £389 recommended asking price – will have to do. Motorola has not said whether it will bring the 32GB model to the UK.</div>
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The basic layout of the Moto X is highly conventional, with a microUSB port at the bottom, power and volume rocker buttons on the right and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack up top.</div>
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Talking of those buttons, they are really well sited. Lots of phones have their buttons in terribly inaccessible positions or just out of natural reach. Motorola has got this right on the Moto X, and made buttons that are responsive to use.</div>
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What is less usual is the SIM tray on the left side of the phone which holds the rarely used nano-sized SIM.</div>
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Given that the only other mainstream phones using a nano SIM today are the iPhone 5S and 5C, that might give you a clue as to which type of user Motorola is targeting here.</div>
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<figure style="border: 1px solid rgb(178, 178, 178); clear: both; cursor: pointer; margin: -1px 0px 20px; overflow-x: hidden; position: relative;"><img alt="Motorola Moto X" src="http://cdn1.mos.techradar.futurecdn.net//art/mobile_phones/Motorola/Moto%20X/Review/moto-x-review-8-580-90.jpg" style="border: 0px; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto; vertical-align: middle;" width="580" /><figcaption style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); bottom: 0px; color: white; font-size: 14px; padding: 10px; position: absolute; text-shadow: black 1px 1px 0px; width: 558px;">That's a nano-SIM slot, that is</figcaption></figure><br />
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In the UK the Motorola Moto X is currently available in the white I had to review and black. I prefer the Moto X in black though, as the white highlights the major flaw in the industrial design that Motorola has employed.</div>
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There is a visible seam round the sides of the Moto X and the white plastic used to frame the screen is of a different shade to the white back. The white bezels around the screen, which sit behind glass, are of a third shade, making the front look a little messy.</div>
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Overall though, this is a very well designed and constructed phone and definitely has a premium enough feel to justify its price - even if there are some concerns about what is on the inside.</div>
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The Moto X blends into the background quite nicely most of the time, and the screen takes up the vast majority of the front, which is a great achievement.</div>
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Moto X review

Ratings in depth It was August of 2013 when Motorola released its first all-new phone under the stewardship of Google, and the Moto X caused quite a stir. While the Nexus line of phones was always me…

24 Mar 2014

Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 review

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A charitable sort might call Samsung's approach to tablets comprehensive, but it could just as easily be described as scattershot. The past few years have seen the launch of 7-inch, 8-inch, 10-inch, and now 12-inch devices aimed at a full range of budgets.</div>
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This focus on quantity has arguably come at the expense of quality for Samsung, with no single outstanding tablet coming from the world's largest consumer tech company.</div>
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The company's new Pro range shows signs of the company re-applying its considerable resources to produce something a little more special.</div>
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While the Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 is expensive and a little creaky, it's an undeniably powerful piece of kit with a much improved custom UI.</div>
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The Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 takes many of the stylistic cues and components from that super-sized powerhouse and packages it in a decidedly more compact and versatile shell. The result is one of Samsung's best tablets to date.</div>
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But with a formidable rival in the iPad mini 2, is that enough? Starting from £349 ($400 or around AUS$440) for the 16GB model, the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 is more expensive than Apple's class-leading compact tablet.</div>
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It's going to have to offer something extra if it's to justify that difference, however slight.</div>
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The spec list reveals several areas in which the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 might excel. Its 8.4-inch LCD display isn't just bigger than the 7.9-inch iPad mini 2, it's also sharper, with a 2560 x 1600 resolution.</div>
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Samsung has gone with a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU, clocked at 2.3GHz. I'll discuss this processor choice a little later.</div>
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This is backed by 2GB of RAM. In addition to internal storage of either 16GB or 32GB, Samsung has also included a microSD slot for up to 64GB of additional capacity - something no iPad has ever offered.</div>
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Add in an 8MP camera, and you'll see that this is clearly a tablet operating at the top end of the spectrum. The question, as with any Samsung tablet, is how all of these impressive components hang together.</div>
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Samsung has stuck with the same design language we've seen in pretty much all of its larger devices, starting with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3and moving right up to the Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2.</div>
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You get the same straight edges, tightly curved corners and dead-flat surfaces. Unfortunately, you also get the same choice of materials.</div>
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The Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4's all-glass front feels fine, but the metal-effect plastic rim and faux-leather back (complete with stitching effect) ensure that the predominant impression is one of<br />cheapness.</div>
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The tablet is just 7.2mm thick and weighs just 325g, which makes it slightly slimmer and lighter than the iPad mini 2, but it feels a lot less premium with it.</div>
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Still, the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4's more compact dimensions ensure that it feels a lot sturdier than the larger devices in the range. There's a lot less of the flexing and creakiness that I've detected in Samsung's recent 10- and 12-inch tablets, that's for sure.</div>
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Indeed, it's a very pleasant tablet to hold. That rear cover might be a little tacky, but it is pleasantly grippy. Meanwhile, the Galaxy Tab 8.4's lightness and 128.5mm span ensures that it's extremely comfortable to wield one-handed in portrait orientation.</div>
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Interestingly, this is the one device in the Tab Pro range to be designed with this orientation in mind. It's evident from the positioning of the home key (flanked as ever by capacitive multitasking and back keys), front-facing camera and Samsung branding along the shorter sides.</div>
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It's also clear by the positioning of the stereo speakers, which are both situated on the bottom edge. This doesn't lead to the excellent stereo separation of the larger models, but it does mean that the speakers will be unobstructed when holding the tablet as intended.</div>
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Of course, when you flip the Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 into landscape mode to watch a movie, the sound will be all wrong - but that serves you right for not plugging in a set of headphones, doesn't it?</div>
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Elsewhere, the placement of the power and volume keys is decent, sitting up high on the right-hand edge. I found that they were a little awkward to access with my natural holding-hand (the left one), though I could at a push use my left middle finger to activate them.</div>
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<figure style="background-color: white; border: 1px solid rgb(178, 178, 178); clear: both; color: #333333; cursor: pointer; font-family: Helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.695999145507813px; margin: -1px 0px 20px; overflow-x: hidden; position: relative;"><img alt=" Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 Review" src="http://cdn2.mos.techradar.futurecdn.net//art/tablets/Samsung/Galaxy%20Tab%20Pro%208.4/Handset%20snaps/Handset%20snaps/Side%20buttons-580-90.JPG" style="border: 0px; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto; vertical-align: middle;" width="580" /><figcaption style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); bottom: 0px; color: white; font-size: 14px; padding: 10px; position: absolute; text-shadow: black 1px 1px 0px; width: 558px;">The power and volume keys are well placed</figcaption></figure><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; width: 480px;">
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Right-handed holding will free up your right thumb for the task, though again you'll probably need to bring your other hand (or your chest) into the mix to steady the tablet for the job.</div>
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Port placement is logical enough, with the microUSB slot on the bottom, between the speakers, and the very-welcome microSD port on the lower left-hand side.</div>
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The 8MP rear camera is situated on the top left-hand corner as you use the tablet in landscape view, and I frequently found myself covering the lens with the fingers of my left hand.</div>
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<figure style="background-color: white; border: 1px solid rgb(178, 178, 178); clear: both; color: #333333; cursor: pointer; font-family: Helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.695999145507813px; margin: -1px 0px 20px; overflow-x: hidden; position: relative;"><img alt="Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 Preview" src="http://cdn2.mos.techradar.futurecdn.net//art/tablets/Samsung/Galaxy%20Tab%20Pro%208.4/Handset%20snaps/Handset%20snaps/Bottom%20port-580-90.JPG" style="border: 0px; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px auto; vertical-align: middle;" width="580" /><figcaption style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); bottom: 0px; color: white; font-size: 14px; padding: 10px; position: absolute; text-shadow: black 1px 1px 0px; width: 558px;">The Pro 8.4's ports are sensibly placed</figcaption></figure><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; width: 480px;">
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Samsung has obviously done this so that the camera is positioned naturally for portrait pictures - that being the tablet's intended orientation.</div>
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But I'd argue that this is usually not the natural orientation for those who like to frame pictures properly - which is usually in landscape.</div>
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Positioning the lens in middle of the device (we're back in landscape here), as the company has with the Tab Pro 10.1 and the Tab Pro 12.2, might have looked and felt a little odd here. But it would undoubtedly have been better for photo taking.</div>
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Considering this is the one tablet in the range that didn't make me feel like a complete idiot for whipping it out and using it as a camera, that's a bit of a shame. I wouldn't call this camera placement a design flaw, though - just an understandable compromise.</div>
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Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 review

A charitable sort might call Samsung's approach to tablets comprehensive, but it could just as easily be described as scattershot. The past few years have seen the launch of 7-inch, 8-inch, 10-inch, …

24 Mar 2014

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