Lloyd Flex Case for HTC One

Most are in agreement that the HTC One is one of the best-looking and best-built phones out there, but sometimes you want a little protection from the elements. If you're going to cover up that beautiful aluminum shell with something, it might as well have our very own Lloyd stenciled on the back.

The Lloyd Flex Case is a light and durable TPU case that protects your HTC One without adding much bulk and looks darn cool doing it. Hang on after the break and see what it has to offer.

Like most rubber TPU cases, the Lloyd Flex case is one solid piece and fits tightly around all edges of the device. The bulk of the case is a glossy material that doesn't provide a ton of grip but should protect against drops well. Offsetting the slippery glossy portions are large ribbed grippers that run the sides of the device and provide just the right amount of resistance for your fingers and hand. Because it's a tough material the case can be tricky to get on the phone, but the upside is that it won't slip off accidentally.

The best part of this case is likely the giant embossed Lloyd logo that adorns the back of the case, which is raised above the glossy parts around it to give a nice feel in your hand. When you're not busy showing off Lloyd, you'll have full access to all of the ports on your One — we had no issues plugging anything in to the ports or accessing the buttons. 

The Lloyd Flex Case is a good option if you're looking for a cheap and simple case to keep your HTC One safe when you expect it to take some bumps. It is available now from ShopAndroid for $10.95 and comes in black, clear, smoke and green color options.

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Hands-on with the Moto X

'OK, Google Now. Show me the Moto X'

Motorola and Google, as we like to say in the South, have done good. We've finally gotten our first look at the new Moto X today in New York City. This thing's been leaked eight ways to Sunday over the past few months — and frankly a lot of what you're about to read we saw in last week's Droid announcements— but pick up the Moto X for the first time and you know you're feeling not just another phone, but a phone looking to do things a little different.

The Moto X is the first phone designed and built from scratch since Google acquired Motorola. And the end result is a phone that's as simple as it is complex. Its design is as understated as it is attractive. There have been so many assumptions about what the first Googlerola phone should be. It should be "Pure Google." It should have NASA-level hardware. It should have at least as many features as the droid line.

What Motorola's done is taken solid hardware and attractive design and married it to a fairly stock version of Android — with some interesting features thrown in, as well as a number of customization options. It's coming to five U.S. carriers in a few weeks and worldwide later, retailing for $199 on contract.

And with that, here's our first look at the Moto X.

The Moto X hands-on video

Moto X hardware

First things first: The Moto X is deceptively big. Motorola has squeezed a 4.7-inch display into a phone that feels a lot smaller. It's not a particularly thin device — hitting 10.4 mm at its fattest point — but it's curvy in all the right places. (We've never believed that thinner always was better anyway.) The back of the phone curves very nicely into your hand, even better than the HTC One, which does the same sort of thing. The feel of the back depends on how you've customized yours. We're currently holding a soft-touch model, but there's glossy plastic to be had — and, yes, Motorola is prototyping wood backs, to be released later this year.

We'll touch on the customizations in a bit.

The 10-megapixel camera and flash are recessed ever so slightly, as is Motorola's logo. The back of the phone isn't removable or anything. No swapping batteries. No microSD card. And if you customize your phone, no swapping it out for anything else. What's there is there.

Up top is the 3.5mm headphone jack. The microUSB port is centered on the bottom. The power button and volume rocker are on the right-hand side. The nano-SIM is on the left.

The front of the Moto X is decidedly black-slabbish, but it's worth noting how the glass flows around the 90-degree edges and into the plastic body. It's very well done.

The Moto X is using the same X8 "Mobile Computing System" under the hood as Verizon's recent Droid refresh. That is to say, it's a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro running at 1.7 GHz, a quad-core Adreno GPU, and dedicated Natural Language Processing and "contextual computing" cores. The latter two are key to the Moto X's major software features.

Other hardware points of note:

• 2GB Of RAM
• The display is (only) 720x1280, and it's AMOLED RGB. It's certainly usable, but probably not our favorite display.
• The battery's got a 2,200 mAh capacity, and Motorola swears it'll go all day. As in 24 hours.
• Most versions of the Moto X sports 16GB of internal memory. AT&T has the exclusive on a 32GB version.
• You'll get 50GB of free storage on Google Drive for two years.
• NFC and Miracast are on board.
• Wifi does 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac.
• aGPS and GLONASS for finding your way around.

The Moto X software …

You've got a relatively stock experience on the Moto X. Home screens, app drawers and settings are as God and Google intended. The two major customizations are Touchless Control — think Google Now without the annoyance of having to turn on your phone and actually touch anything — and Active Display, which is a low-power way of showing you information on the display without actually having to wake the phone.

Touchless Control

For Touchless Control, you'll have to teach Moto X what it sounds like when you say "OK, Google Now." From then on, the phone will be listening for you — or someone who sounds like you — to say that magic phrase. The phone will wake and be ready for voice commands. No touch required at all. And it works pretty well. Is it possible for someone else to activate? Yep. Seen it happen. It's also subject to the same limitations of Google Now. But that's a software thing, and Google Now's getting better all the time.

This is where some folks have worried about the phone being "always on" or "always listening." We're not going to let that keep us up at night.

Active Display

Active Display — again, like on the Droid line — shows you a bit of information without actually having to hit the power button and waking the phone. A clock will flash every few seconds. If you get e-mail or a text message or something, you'll know it here as well. The items that can appear on the Active Display are customizable — and some can live behind a lockscreen, hidden from prying eyes. You also can set the hours during which you want to see Active Notifications. Don't want 'em at night? Turn 'em off.

The camera​ app

Moto X has a new camera as well (unless you have one of the new Droids, we suppose), with that quick-flip way of getting to it. Called "Quick Capture," you just turn your wrist twice — like turning a screwdriver or a doorknob — and the camera app fires up. In just a couple seconds from any point, you're able to take pictures. (You can turn that off if you want, and the usual camera icon works just fine as well.) The camera app itself is nicely done, too. Not overloaded with features, you get to the options by sliding out from the left-hand side. From there you have options for HDR, flash, autofocus — by default, you tap the screen to take a picture; this option lets you touch to focus instead — slow-motion, panorama (no Photosphere, though), Geotagging and shutter sound.

It's also worth taking a look at the Assist app, which is sort of an offshoot of the old Smart Actions. The phone will recognize when you're driving, when you're in a meeting or when you're sleeping, and change its behavior appropriately. Moving at 55 mph? Chances are you're driving, so it'll fire up the car mode. Or it'll silence the phone at night.

Other software we're seeing:

• We'll withhold official praise until we see a final retail version, but there's not a whole lot of AT&T bloatware on the unit we've got here.
• Motorola's got its own "Migrate" app for transferring data from another device. You'll need to download it on the other device from Goggle Play.
• There's a translate app built in as well.
• There's a Motorola Connect Chrome extension if you want to get texts and such on your computer as well as your phone.

Customizing the Moto X

Motorola wants this to be your Moto X. And to that end, you're going to be able to customize it. Colors, backs, styles, textures — including, yes, wood — will be yours for the choosing. 

If you're on AT&T, that is. For now, one of the coolest features of Moto X is constrained to a single U.S. carrier. That's great for AT&T. It's great if you're on AT&T. And it's lousy for everyone else. Motorola needs to get that opened up as soon as it can.

You'll do all your customizing through "Moto Maker."  You can change up the color on the front. Or the back. The accents. You can even inscribe a name or message on the back of the phone. At AT&T stores, you'll have the option to either pick a basic white or black version and leave the store with a phone right then. Or if you go the custom route, you'll pay and get a redemption code, then design your phone at home.

From there, Motorola promises you'll get your phone within four days — that's one perk of assembling the phones (not manufacturing, but assembling) in the U.S. Fort Worth, Texas, to be exact.

Along with colors and designs (and the option to choose between 16GB of storage, or 32GB for another $50), you'll be able to purchase accessories — headphones, speakers, cases and earbuds — directly from Motorola.

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Review: Samsung Nexus 10 (GT-P8110)

The Nexus 10 is a collaboration between Google and Samsung. The tablet was announced in November of 2012. After months and months of trial and error we finally managed to grab a Nexus 10 and now here is our full review. In this review we will determine if the Nexus 10 is indeed one of the best Android tablets on the Market or not.

Introduction

The Nexus 10 is Google’s first 10″ tablet and it’s a stunner! As we get further into the review I will talk about both the hardware and the software of the Nexus 10. During this review we will take a look at the following points of the tablet:
- Hardware and design
- Interface
- Performance
- Camera
- Battery life
- Conclusion

Hardware and design

The Nexus 10 uses plastic as its main build component and the build quality of the tablet is just superb. The Nexus 10 has the most practical 10 inch tablet design ever. Samsung and Google has designed it in a way that a person can easily hold it in one hand and operate it from the other. The weight of the tablet is also evenly distributed. On the back, Samsung uses a rubberized material which makes the Nexus 10 much comfortable to hold and gives the tablet a smooth feel, plus adds a lot of grip. The front of the tablet is covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 2 and underneath it a stunning 10.1 is Super PLS display with a resolution of 2560×1600, giving it a pixel density of 300 PPI. Making the Nexus 10 the highest resolution tablet on the market, even higher than Apple’s iPad with Retina Display (264 PPI).

On the front of the Nexus 10 you will find a 1.9 Megapixel front facing camera which is capable of shooting up to 720p HD video and 2 stereo speakers which produce some outstanding results. On the top of the tablet, there is a Power/Lock button and a Volume Rocker. On the left side of the device you will find a MicroUSB port for charging/syncing and a 3.5mm headphone jack. On the right side of the device you will find a MicroHDMI port. And a Magnetic Pogo pin charger is located on the bottom of the Nexus 10.

The dimensions of the Nexus 10 are 263.9 x 177.6 x 8.9 mm and it weighs 603g. The tablet is available in two storage configurations, 16GB and 32GB. The storage can’t be expanded by using a MicroSD card and there is no 3G/4G connectivity.

 

Interface

The Nexus 10 runs on the latest and greatest from Google, Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. Android 4.2 brought a lot of new features, like Multiple user support, Gesture Typing, Notification Settings, Daydream and the amazing Photo Sphere Camera. The stock Android experience really shines on the Nexus 10 as the OS is completely optimized for its high resolution display, so everything looks crisp and clear.

Google did some alterations to it’s Tablet UI in Android 4.2 and made it unified with it’s 7″ Tablet UI and the Phone UI. The traditional navigation bar is at the bottom but the notification center which used to be in the bottom as well has been shifted upwards, like in the Phone UI. I think this was a really nice move by Google as new users can easily adapt to the Tablet UI now.

Performance

The Nexus 10 packs a dual-core (Cortex-A15) Samsung Exynos 5250 processor clocked at 1.7GHz, Quad-Core Mali-T604 GPU and 2GB of RAM. At first, I thought the device would lack on performance due to the tablet only having a dual-core CPU but I was wrong. The Nexus 10 proves that Android really doesn’t need more than 2 cores. I was really pleased with the overall performance of the device.

Multitasking is just excellent on this tablet. I opened 12-15 apps (including 2 memory intensive games) but I got no lag whatsoever. Transitioning between opened apps was really fast and smooth. The gaming experience was really amazing on this super high-res tablet too. Thanks to Project Butter, the UI was fast and responsive. The only problem I had was the launcher redraw issue. Whenever I used to close an app and go back to my home screen the launcher used to redraw, this was very annoying. This issue might get resolved by a software update in the future.

I also ran some benchmarks on the Nexus 10. Below are the results:
Antutu = 13639
Quadrant = 4555
Cf-Bench = (17382, 6637, 10935)

Camera

The Nexus 10 features a 5 Megapixel camera sensor which is capable of shooting 1080p video at 30FPS. The camera isn’t all that great and I have seen much better camera sensors on tablets. Actually, I was a bit disappointed. The Nexus 10 can capture acceptable images in good lighting conditions or with flash but in low light conditions it’s just terrible, a lot of noise in the image. Same goes with video recording as well, the sound quality was good though. Below are some images taken with the Nexus 10:

     

Battery life

The Nexus 10 packs a huge 9000 mAh Lithium polymer battery and it certainly needs the huge battery to power the stunning high-res display. The battery life is really impressive on the Nexus 10, I easily managed to get 7-8 hours of video playback and the standby time on this tablet is just magnificent, even with WiFi turned on the whole time.

Conclusion

Yes, The Nexus 10 is indeed one of the best Android tablets in the market right now. The Nexus 10 features a stunning super high resolution display with an impressive battery life. The tablet packs a lot of raw power and gives an outstanding gaming experience as well. Camera and the lack of expandable storage are the only cons of the Nexus 10. Also, the device will be among the first ones to receive the latest Android updates and at such a low price, it’s a steal!

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HTC One SV Review!

The HTC One SV isn’t the most recent addition to HTC’s increasingly confusingly named One series of phones, nor is the most talked about. That doesn’t mean, however, that it isn’t worth a look.

It may not have the most eye-poppingly impressive specs, but the HTC One SV is part of arecent trend of very capable yet inexpensive dual-core phones. Does it have what it takes to keep up with its competition? Read on to find out.

In a hurry? Check out our video review or jump to the conclusion at the end of the article.

Specs

• 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor
• Adreno 305 GPU
• 4.3-inch WVGA display (800 x 480, 217 ppi)
• 1 GB RAM
• 8 GB internal storage, expandable via microSD slot
• 5 MP rear-facing camera /w 1080p video capture
• 1.6 MP front-facing camera /w 720 video capture
• 1,800 mAh replaceable battery
• Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich

Build Quality & Design

It’s fairly easy to confuse the HTC One SV with other devices in the same line, such as the One X, and it’s likely that this was a conscious decision on HTC’s part. If you’re a fan of the look of those devices, chances are fairly slim that your opinion of the One SV will be drastically different.

As with most devices from HTC, the One SV is well built and feels very solid. Despite this, it manages to keep its weight down at just 122 grams. The phone is very comfortable to hold, and even with its light weight and generally small size, it doesn’t feel like the HTC One SV is going to leap out of your hand easily.

Display

As with most phones in this range, the display is where the HTC One SV takes the biggest hit when compared to phones on the higher end of the scale. The low resolution of 800 x 480 and pixel density of 217 ppi just can’t hold up to the super-high pixel counts in phones costing much more.

You’re not going to notice to low resolution and pixel density in every case, but it is noticeable. Photos look good on the screen, for example, but computer-generated imagery is where the low pixel density is most noticeable. Text and icons aren’t as sharp as they are on more pixel-rich displays, but the aliasing isn’t as apparent as it would be on a larger screen size.

Pixel count isn’t everything, and the other aspects of the display are well done. Colors are warm and vivid, and the brightness and contrast are right where they should be.

Performance

As we’ve come to expect in these dual-core Snapdragon devices, performance was generally good. Apps launched quickly without fail, and scrolling through the home screens and app drawer was smooth. We tested a few games from the Google Play Store, and while they generally ran fairly smoothly, we did notice the occasional hitch in performance.

To break performance down into more quantifiable terms, we ran a few benchmarks, starting with AnTuTu. We ran the full benchmark three times and took the average, leaving us with a score of 10898. In comparison, the LG Spirit 4G we reviewed recently scored an average of 11783 with similar hardware.

Next, we ran Epic Citadel which may not be as comprehensive of a benchmark, but is just plain cool. In High Quality mode, the benchmark resulted in an average framerate of 48.0 FPS, while we ended up with 50.7 FPS in High Performance mode.

Software

In a somewhat disappointing move, the HTC One SV runs Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich and HTC Sense 4.1. While we’ve heard that an upgrade to Jelly Bean and Sense 4+ could be on the way, I checked for an update multiple times during testing and wasn’t offered an update.

While this means that you won’t be able to use some software–Google Now springs to mind–it generally doesn’t mean much when it comes to the overall look and feel of the device. With the Sense overlay, you’ll be hard pressed to tell what Android version is running underneath, and in use the phone acts just like an entry in the One series running newer software would.

When it comes to other software, HTC has included quite a bit of what could be considered bloatware on the One SV and, as usual, it can’t be removed. Luckily, many of the apps included are small, useful utility apps. For example, the Flashlight, FM Radio, Mirror, Voice Recorded and Wi-Fi Hotspot apps will probably come in handy on more than one occasion.

Camera

I wasn’t blown away by the camera in the HTC One SV, but I wasn’t expecting to be. The cameras in phones of this class are never the greatest, and that is certainly the case here, but at least HTC made sure to cram the camera in the One SV full of features.

The main camera is 5 megapixels and capable of 1080p video recording, while the front-facing camera is 1.6 megapixels and captures 720p video. Colors are reproduced well with relatively little distortion, and low-light performance is surprisingly good, especially for a device in this class.

Where it gets more interesting is the amount of bells and whistles HTC has thrown in. Burst mode and Best Shot are included, as are HDR mode and the ability to simultaneously capture images and video. Speaking of video, the 1080p video capture is usable, and HTC has included its always fun slow-mo recording mode.

Battery

While it’s easy to look at the battery capacity of 1,800 mAh and dismiss the battery, that isn’t the case here. Qualcomm Snapdragon chipsets can do some very impressive things with relatively low-capacity batteries, and the combination of a smaller screen and lower-clocked processor help extend battery life as well.

Even after a full day of heavy benchmarking and testing, I got just over eight hours of battery life out of the HTC One SV. Using the phone more like a normal person would, I easily made it through a full day without needing to charge until late that night.

In a move that is somewhat unusual for HTC, the battery in the One SV is replaceable. Extended batteries are available, although they don’t seem to offer much more capacity than the included battery. Still, if you want to make sure that you don’t run out of juice, you’ll be glad to know that you can carry a spare battery.

Video Review

Conclusion

Devices like the HTC One SV are becoming increasingly common, and with the specs and performance being so similar across the board, the deciding factors are generally going to boil down to two things: design, and pricing. Pricing is trickier, as various deals are always going to make this a changing landscape. With style, well, that’s up to you.

The HTC One SV is a stylish, well-performing phone that is well suited for HTC fans and those who are either on a budget or just don’t need a high-end phone. If you don’t like HTC Sense, you might want to look elsewhere, but otherwise the One SV could be a great choice, especially if you can find a good deal on it.

What do you think of the HTC One SV? Let us know in the comments below.

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