Nexus 6P review: Outstanding phone, even better value

You may already know that the Nexus 6P is Google's 2015 flagship smartphone and Huawei's first high-profile handset to launch in the US. You can also add Best Smartphone of 2015 candidate to that list. Read on, as Gizmag reviews the awesome Nexus 6P.




The Nexus 6P has a brilliant, all-metal design, a big and beautiful display, great camera, impressive all-around battery life ... name something you'd want in a high-end smartphone, and chances are the Nexus 6P ticks that box.

One of the best things about the new Nexus is that it has a premium design that doesn't look anything like an iPhone – a balancing act that the Samsungs and HTCs of the world sometimes struggle with. Its most unique bits are a glass bar on the top end of the phone's backside and a back-facing fingerprint sensor below the bar:

The touch-based sensor is every bit as fast and reliable as the upgraded Touch ID on the latest iPhones, and we love the backside placement: it's right where your index finger will naturally rest when holding the phone.

Elsewhere it has a drool-worthy aluminum body that looks as beautiful as anything out there right now. Unlike Samsung, Apple and others, the Nexus isn't trying to break light and thin records, but it also doesn't feel unusually beefy (at least for a phone this big). This is a premium and substantial handset, through and through.

Flip it around you'll see one of the best displays you can find on any 2015 smartphone. The 5.7-inch, Quad HD AMOLED screen is made by Samsung and, with the same specs, could very well be the same panel found in the Galaxy Note 5 (that's a good thing). Even its mid-ranged brightness settings are very bright, white balance is terrific (it leans slightly towards yellows compared to the iPhone 6s, but still in very good shape) and that 518 PPI pixel density has content looking razor-sharp.

 

You need to split the Nexus 6P's battery life into two categories. Its active-use battery life is good: in our Wi-Fi video streaming benchmark it dropped 14 percent per hour. Tested at equal brightness (measured by a lux meter), that's just a hair behind the Note 5, Galaxy S6 edge+ and latest iPhones (13 percent per hour) and better than the Galaxy S6 (16 percent per hour).

The Nexus 6P's standby battery life, though, pushes it ahead of those phones. Android 6.0 Marshmallow has a new setting called Doze that cuts down on battery drain when you aren't using your device. When it's resting in my pocket, the Nexus 6P only drops (usually) 1 percent or (sometimes) 2 percent per hour. And that's with notifications coming in regularly and a smartwatch connected via Bluetooth.

Good active-use plus great inactive-use uptimes equals very good all-around battery life for the Nexus 6P.

When you do need to charge, the phone makes fumbling around trying to find the "right" way to insert a microUSB cable a thing of the past, as it joins the Nexus 5X and OnePlus 2 in using the new reversible USB Type C standard. And unlike the mid-ranged 5X, the 6P includes a short USB Type C to Type A cable in the box, to help smooth out the transition to the new standard.

The Nexus 6P's camera is among the best of the year. We took identical shots with it and the iPhone 6s, and the only area where the 6s won out was in extremely poorly-lit shots. The Nexus' shot didn't look any darker than the iPhone's (both captured plenty of light considering the horrible lighting), but it added some noticeable noise that we didn't see in the iPhone's shot.

Everywhere else, though, we'd pick the Nexus. Its flash shots look slightly better (less blown-out, more evenly lit with richer colors) and its medium-lit to well-lit indoor and outdoor samples captured more detail. As long as you're okay sticking with the flash in poorly-lit settings, then we'd pick it over the iPhone.

Here are a few samples (these are downscaled to low resolution for the web, but you can click them for higher-res versions).

First, outdoors under direct sunlight:

 

Indoors, under medium lighting:

... and extremely poor lighting, no flash:

The Nexus has a camera quick-launch shortcut, where you double-tap the power button to jump straight to the camera (similar to what Samsung did with this year's flagships). It works as advertised, letting us jump from sleeping phone to captured shot in under 3 seconds.

The camera app did, however, occasionally freeze up on us for a few precious seconds when launching, keeping those impressive launch speeds from being quite as consistent as we'd like.

If you're looking for a new large-ish smartphone, we recommend taking a long and hard look at the Nexus 6P. You won't be able to do that in stores, as it's an online exclusive (from the Google Store and Huawei in the US), but if you take the chance and order blindly, we think you're unlikely to be disappointed.

Not only is the Nexus 6P a top Smartphone of the Year candidate, it's easily the best value of a 2015 flagship. When buying at full retail, its biggest rivals – the iPhone 6s Plus, Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ – each cost $200-300 extra. The Nexus 6P is the best $499 smartphone we've seen.


The oustanding Nexus 6P is available now, from the Google Store and Huawei's US store, starting at $499 for 32 GB storage.


Source :gizmag

Read More

Google acquires Fly Labs to build video editing tools for Google Photos

Google said today it has acquired Fly Labs, maker of four iOS apps for quickly editing video, and will put its team to work on Google Photos. "It's a perfect match for what we built at Fly Labs, and we're looking forward to folding our technology into Google Photos," Fly said in a statement posted to its website. The company will continue to offer its four apps — Clips, Fly, Tempo, and Crop — for the next three months, and Google is giving away what used to be in-app purchases for free during that time.

Read More

A brief history of the bend test

Someone always has to break the newest phone. Whether it's by dropping it, smashing it, or bending it, we apparently all have some perverse desire to see the flashiest new gadgets in ruin. Part of that is from a legitimate curiosity about how sturdy they are, but part of it is certainly just that we love destruction.

The newest trend is the bend test. At this point, it feels like we've always been bending phones, but that's really not the case. If you go back a couple of years, the most compelling bend tests you'll find are on counterfeit Magic cards. Pretty much no one was doing them on gadgets until a year ago.

The bend test is a new phenomenon

I don't have hard evidence for why that is, but I think it's safe to guess that this has come about because phones have finally hit the point where they're thin enough to be inadvertently bent during normal use, like spending hours and hours in someone's pocket. And it just so happened that the most popular phone in the world had a bending issue. That combination was enough to send interest in bend tests skyrocketing, and they've been a thing ever since — most recently, blowing up when someone destroyed a Nexus 6P.

But there's a long history of stress tests leading up to the bend test, going all the way back to much humbler beginnings. Here, we take a brief look at where the bend test came from, from a possible beginning, through the strange era of drop tests, to today's destructive bends.


Source : theverge

Read More

Windows 10 -- Coming Soon To A TV Near You, If You Live In India

Over the last couple of years, Microsoft MSFT -1.36% has streamlined and optimized Windows in an effort to make the OS run on smaller, less powerful devices. Whereas older versions of Windows, in the pre-Windows 7 era, usually required more robust hardware than earlier versions to run well, Windows 10 can run acceptably on everything from sub-$100 tablets to ultra-powerful, multi-core, multi-GPU gaming systems.

Chip makers and hardware manufactures have also put forth considerable effort in recent years to make smaller, more powerful, yet more power-efficient hardware. The latest hardware has made tiny devices like the Intel INTC -3.03% Compute Stick and a myriad of mini-PCs possible, which can run full-blown versions of Windows in form factors not much larger than a USB flash drive.

With both Windows and hardware capable of running Windows getting smaller and more streamlined, it’s no surprise that Microsoft’s OS is finding its way into more and more, non-traditional devices. This week, for example, Indian electronics manufacturer Videocon announced the first two Windows-Powered HD televisions.

Videocon has two full HD (1080p) televisions coming down the pipe, 40” and 32” models. They’re both essentially large, all-in-one touch-screens PCs, powered by Intel processors. The exact specifications weren’t listed, but from what has been revealed, it is very likely the innards are very much in-line with Intel’s Compute Stick. The TVs have 2GB of RAM, built-in Wi-Fi, and 16GB of internal storage, that can be expanded to 128GB by way of a microSD expansion slot. It’s very likely the processor at the heart of the setup is the same quad-core Bay Trail CPU Intel uses on the Compute Stick.

This type of integration makes perfect sense. The hardware necessary to power Windows isn’t all that expensive (the quad-core Compute Stick retails for only $149, for example), and as more apps and even games can be streamed from the web, the need for massive amounts of local storage diminishes. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Windows popping up in more televisions, or really anywhere there’s a screen available—automobiles, other appliances, wherever. Giving users the ability to access their data and apps from virtually anywhere there is a screen appealing on a number of different levels.  Windows 10’s powered televisions would also allow Xbox One owners to stream their games to different screens, as long as the Xbox is on the same network.


Source : forbes

Read More

Underwater Drone Startup OpenROV Launches A Super Fast Exploration Robot

Trident is a remote-controlled, camera-equipped underwater drone – and it’s the fastest machine yet from underwater robotics startup OpenROV.

Trident can go “as fast as Michael Phelps,” according to co-founders David Lang and Eric Stackpole. For reference, Phelps clocks in at 4.4 mph if you factor his record for 50.77 seconds in the 100 m. So that’s faster than a goldfish, but not as fast as one might think. It’s still pretty fast as far as underwater vehicles, or even some drones go, though.

The other cool thing about Trident is its ability for precision maneuvers. Trident can swim in long, straight lines called “transects” but also stop on a dime and execute moves in tight spaces, using any kind of gaming controller (we tried it out with a Playstation controller hooked up to a PC monitor).

Read More

Amazon's Prime Now will bring you the latest Call of Duty game at midnight

Taking part in the midnight launch of a video game usually involves driving to your local GameStop or Best Buy and sitting in line with your fellow gamers for awhile. But Amazon seems to think the whole communal aspect is a bit unnecessary. Today the company announced that Prime Now, its one-hour delivery service, will be making midnight deliveries of Call of Duty: Black Ops III on November 6th. To get the game right upon its launch hour, you'll have to preorder using the Prime Now app beginning at midnight eastern on November 4th.

Read More

You bought the new Apple TV — which apps should you download?

Apple this week started selling its new streaming video box, another piece of hardware that connects to your TV set with the sometimes-undelivered promise of making cable unnecessary. But as anyone who's been paying attention to Apple TV announcements knows, this is not about hardware; it's about apps.

Executives at the Cupertino tech giant have said that tvOS, the new operating system for Apple TV, is "95 percent" of the same core framework as iOS, so that apps being built for the different platforms will stay in sync across different devices as they're updated. This basically means Apple is attempting to make it easier for developers to make all kinds of stuff for Apple TV, just like they do for iPhone. It's an interesting direction for Apple, which for years insisted calling the apps on its TV box "channels."

Read More

What comes after the smartphone?

As the premise goes, mini computers disrupted mainframes and PCs disrupted minis. Then the smartphone put an end to the dominance of the PC. The companies that got in early were able to capitalize on the trend and prosper. Those that clung to the past disappeared.

Read More

This Nexus 6P bend test is horrifically unfair, mildly entertaining

If you want a scientifically rigorous analysis of the Nexus 6P's durability, this isn't it. Please close this window and advance with the productive parts of your day.

But if you're after a gruesome tech-destruction horror show, hit play.

Read More

Apple's testing the waters with rare discount on Apple Watch and iPhone bundle

Generally speaking, Apple doesn't believe in discounts. Save for its back-to-school and stingy Black Friday sales, Apple's devices cost a certain price, and that's the price you're going to pay if you want to buy direct from the source.

 That's why a promotion spotted by a MacRumours reader is particularly interesting. Apple has confirmed to the site that it is offering a bundle deal with the Apple Watch. If you buy an Apple Watch or Apple Watch Sport alongside any new iPhone, you'll save $50. That's certainly a modest discount — even if you get the cheapest iPhone and Watch available, we're talking about a savings of roughly six percent — but it's notable for a company like Apple that's so stingy with sales.

It seems Apple is just testing this bundle deal for now to see if it can make any noticeable boost to Apple Watch sales. An Apple representative confirmed to MacRumours that the deal is currently valid in stores only. And even then, it's only at a handful of locations around the Bay Area and Boston from October 30th through November 15th. If the promotion goes well, it's certainly seems possible Apple could expand it across the country.
The deal will undoubtedly raise suspicions about how Apple Watch sales are going. Apple, as expected, has largely kept mum on the topic, though quarterly earnings suggest that the Apple Watch brought in over a billion in revenue in Q3.
It's likely that Apple is testing the waters to see how the Watch fares when billed more strongly as a natural companion to the iPhone. We all know Apple sells its smartphones in spades; if it can convince consumers that they're missing the true experience unless they get the Watch, too, then the it might be well worth the $50 loss per sale.

Source : theverge.com

Read More

Hennessey adds 200 hp and more speed to the world's fastest car

Koenigsegg may be the one pushing the idea of a 1 hp/1 kg car, but Hennessey beat it there by a few years with the 1,200-kg (2,646 lb), 1,200-hp Venom GT. That car set an unofficial world speed record a hair under 270.5 mph (435.3 km/h) in 2014. And it's still not good enough for John Hennessey, who has stuffed another 207 horses into his supercar in a bid to ensure it remains one of the world's most powerful cars. Gotta keep up with the Koenigseggs and Bugattis, after all. It's all part of the 2,875 horses that Hennessey will storm SEMA with next week.

Read More