WhistleOut

Windows 8 and Social Panopticism

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Alex Angove

Microsoft has revealed a new feature of its upcoming Windows 8 OS upgrade. Family Safety is a built-in function of Windows 8 that allows parents to track literally everything that happens on a computer over the course of a week.

Details of web searches, websites visited and even most commonly played games are recorded and can be viewed by the parent. The feature not only allows parents to view what has been done on the internet, but also how much time has been spent on each specific activity. For instance, a parent can check how many hours are spent on Facebook, or playing a specific game such as the recent World of Warcraft.

Microsoft recommends creating different user accounts for each of your children, so that usage can be individually monitored with more accuracy.

We’re sure that plenty of parents will jump at the chance to make sure their kids aren’t being subjected to undesirable material, or spending way too much time playing games. Obviously in our current age the unrated nature of the internet can be worrying. Even web filters often miss things and children can end up viewing something that they don’t want to. But this raises the question: how much monitoring is too much?

Obviously this is a great tool for parents with very young children. When it comes to this kind of thing preventing unwanted content will always be better than cure, but it’s still important to know if a young child has been subjected to sensitive material and thus should have what they’ve seen explained to them in a clear and concise manner.

But once a child hits adolescence things start to become a bit murky. A web search regarding a specific word or phrase can be taken seriously out of context. There’s also the notion of imposing a Big-Brother-esque set of restrictions on said adolescent. By limiting what they feel they can safely look up and learn about on the internet it’s not outside the realm of possibility that their psyche will be ultimately affected. The adolescent will be constantly editing and controlling their own actions to the point where they may regard certain questions or topics, topics that they cannot look up on the internet, as being improper or abnormal.

We’re not saying if it would be for better or worse, just that there could foreseeably be an affect of living with the knowledge that your online life, which is a huge part of a modern teenager’s existence, is completely recorded and open to the scrutinising gaze of your parents.

The concept relates back to an old philosophical principal that has since been studied in detail by psychologists. The principal is called the Social Panopticon, or Panopticism, as described by Michel Foucault. The Panopticon was first conceived of by social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late 18^th century as a theoretical prison designed entirely toward the rehabilitation of inmates.

The prison would be cylindrical in shape, with every cell facing inwards. Through the centre of this prison would rise a viewing station, from which the guards could see the prisoners. The prisoners could not in turn see the guards due to the implementation of one-way mirrors in the cells.

The theory was that because the prisoners could never tell if they were being watched or not they would alter their behavioural patterns to appear more likely a candidate for parole at every point throughout a day, not just when they are out of their cells. By constantly appearing as if they were responsible until it felt as natural to them as to any other member of society they would slowly become rehabilitated.

The Social Pantopticon, or Panopticism, refers to a similar affect created by society as a whole. We are so used to acting in a certain way when we are in public or with company that even when we are alone we are unlikely or less-likely to perform in overtly abnormal ways. For instance, while you may be more willing to sing loudly to yourself when you are home alone than when you are in public, you’re unlikely to do something totally ‘weird’ like painting your face with peanut butter just to see what it feels like (should you have the urge). Even if you did you would likely feel uncomfortable because you would be acting outside a social norm. You might even start imagining what would happen ‘if someone saw you.’

So with this idea of Panopticism, or the notion that a perceived anonymous power is observing us makes us wish to think and act normally, shaping our psyche it’s not too much of a stretch to think that an adolescent may be affected by an actual real-world monitoring system within their own home.

In some ways this idea of strict in-home monitoring is also reminiscent to an article we posted recently about self-editing through our online persona. In a TED Talk given by Professor Sherry Turkle of MIT the notion of loneliness through plugging-in was discussed. While much of that talk is not particularly relevant to this case, we were reminded of Professor Turkle’s words regarding a self-editing process that many of us now engage in.

We won’t go in to too much depth, as we already did that with the original article and for more information you can just check out the TED Talk yourself, but the general gist is that through textual communication and our online social media accounts we present to the world a self-edited identity that we believe to be more desirable than its unedited counterpart.

When we send a text or email we have the comfort of planning and editing our words before they are received. On Facebook we can show only the pictures of ourselves that we are most comfortable with and we can even remove past posts if we feel that they paint a poor picture of us.

In a way a child altering their online actions in order to not get in trouble, or to paint a better picture of themselves to their parents, is another form of this self-editing process. The child in question is presenting an intentionally edited version of themselves to their parents, just in case their parents should want to check on them. Self-editing is a process that Turkle finds worrying, as she believes that it affects our ability to self-reflect and to understand our own identity which in-turn affects our ability to successfully identify with others.

Of course we’re not stating that Windows 8’s Family Safety function is overtly dangerous, harmful or ‘wrong’, but we think that it’s important for the possible implications of stringent digital monitoring to be considered. Is the knowledge of what your kids are looking up going to change what they view or at least let you know what’s going on? Probably. Is it the best thing for them once they pass a certain stage in their development? That’s entirely up to you. At the end of the day what’s probably most important that we’re at least asking ourselves the question.

Posted in Broadband, Mobile Phones, Tablets | Tagged Microsoft, Windows 8

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Making Sense of Bill Shock Part 1

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Cameron Craig

We were chatting to a researcher the other day who thought that mobile carriers were screwing you when you went ‘OVER’ your cap. ‘THAT’S WHERE THEY RIP YOU OFF’ was the comment that was made.

Ok, calm down we said, there’s no need to call the Dr or ask for help, the simple diagnosis is ‘bill shock’. Do you concur?

In this post, we’re just going to focus in on call rates on mobile plans to understand them and then we’ll look at data plans and bill shock in another post.

Call rates of $1 per minute are not a rip off when used in their sweet spot and should not be shocking, it is just that this is poorly explained to consumers by telco. You’ll be less shocked if you understand how this all works. Some consumer reports now estimate that almost half of the mobile phone base in Australia has experienced bill shock so we’re talking to one if every two readers here.

It is easy to understand how all the components of a mobile plan (included value, data, overseas use and other features) can play into a large bill.

The idea that you are ‘penalised’ when you go outside your included value is not true, it is just feels that way.

There is no penalty, it is just the discounting has stopped. The call and SMS rates do not change, but it does feel like they do. Let us explain below.

A standard mobile plan works out at just over $1 per minute when you include flagfall charges (most plans are 90c per minute and the flagfall charges are 30c. The average call length in Australia is 3 mins therefore you are looking at 90c x 3 minutes ($2.70) + 30c flagfall on average which equals $3 or $1 per minute).

Still following? A mobile plan from Carrier X might advertise $600 of included value for $60 per month which would equate to 600 minutes of maximum use for $60. You’ve seen the ads everywhere.

Time rolls on…you’re happily calling away each month and everything is going great and you get charged $60 per month and coming in just under 600 minutes but you never really notice.

BUT, then when you have a big month and a friend needs to talk every night and you double your phone usage for the month. You get the feeling that you’ve get a bigger bill this month, probably double your normal bill which feels about right to you.

You regular bill is $60 per month and in your head you think it might be $120 on this big month.

Wrong, that’s where the shock is. In fact that first 600 minutes at $1 per minute and the carrier gave you $600 of value to use by paying them $60 per month. The next 600 minutes are also $1 per minute except you pay per use on this. This means that second set of 600 minutes are going to cost $600 also, but you did not pre-purchase that from the carrier at the nicely discounted rate of $60 so you pay per use at $600.

Therefore, your bill is $660 for double usage in that month up from $60. Double usage DOES NOT double the price of $120 and that is a shocking to most people’s understanding of products. If you’re going to go over your included value amount, call your carrier immediately and upgrade plans.

Your might be on a $60 plan for 600 minutes. A $100 plan might give you 1400 minutes and get you out of trouble for this month and every further month. The art of the mobile plan is to find the sweet spot where you are under using your plan’s included value whilst getting the maximum amount paid off your new shiny handset.

The plan itself is not bad value. Were you to use 600 minutes of calls for just $60 per month, the EFFECTIVE rates mean that you’d really only be paying 10c per minute as you were given 10x bonus when you paid $60 and $600 of value and that is cheaper than the amaysim As You Go plan (as 15c, now 12.5c per minute) which is offered as a mobile plan killer.

It pays to compare mobile plans BEFORE you buy and think smart during your contract.

Posted in Broadband, Mobile Phones |

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Facebook App Center Beta

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Alex Angove

Facebook has thrown its hat in to the mobile and desktop application ring, announcing its very own Facebook App Center, now open to developers as a beta. The Facebook App Center (FAC) represents a potential huge step forward in Facebook’s continuing domination of the social network scene. It also raises a few questions and possible consequences that could affect the future of the smartphone market as a whole.

What is the Facebook App Center?

First we’ll cover the basics. The Facebook App Center is set to be a new application store, much like the Apple App Store or Google Play (formerly Android Market). The FAC will support apps for both iOS and Android, as well as have a third section specifically for HTML5 web apps designed for PCs and Macs.

Both Facebook-owned and third-party apps will be available from the FAC. Qualifying for app submission sounds simple enough, Facebook’s own eligibility section lays down some straight-forward guidelines:

An app on Facebook.com in a canvas page

A mobile app built for the web, iOS or Android that uses Facebook Login

A website that uses Facebook Login and has an immediately logged-in, personalized experience (see App Quality for more info)

An App for Pages built to manage or enhance other companies’ Facebook Pages

via Facebook

The key point to focus on here is that every app requires a Facebook Login option, but we’ll come back to that later.

Right now it’s unclear exactly how users will access and download apps, but what we have seen looks pretty straight forward, even if it doesn’t quite sound that simple. Facebook isn’t planning to use a Top 25 system like the Apple App Store. Instead that eerie Facebook tendency to show you only stuff that you’re interested in will be implemented. Apps that you have viewed, liked or already downloaded will decide what apps will appear at the top of your list. It’s probably safe to assume that your greater actions across Facebook as a whole will also have an impact on this. Smart money is also on app suggestions appearing on the right side of your Facebook screen, where ads and suggested friends currently reside.

Interesting Repercussions

There are a few points of interest that immediately came to mind for us when reading about this new app store and Facebook’s approach regarding its implementation.

No Windows Phone Support

Windows Phone is already suffering from a lack of app support. It’s been making great strides in fixing this deficiency, but the exclusion of WP apps from the FAC could prove to be another significant roadblock in Microsoft’s way.

It also highlights that, while Android has become an accepted mainstream devices in the eyes of big companies, Windows Phone still apparently has a way to go. It’s more than likely that Facebook would have included Windows Phone apps if the move promised to be sufficiently profitable. The exclusion of it suggests that Facebook doesn’t have faith that this would be so.

Facebook Login for Apps

It’s already pretty common for apps to have Facebook as a login option. Most apps that do offer either Facebook integration also have the option of creating a separate account, usually email-based which in turn usually means Gmail-based. Of course, plenty of apps don’t offer Facebook as a login option and rely on email (read: Gmail) as a reference. This is where FAC may prove to have an impact on the mobile industry and the internet as a whole.

Right now Google and Facebook are waging a war for how you find things on the web. At the outset, Google would appear to be winning that battle, with a huge percentage of users opting for Google as their search engine or Home Page. Google also owns YouTube, the largest distributor of video content of all kinds in the world. Google is also the powerhouse behind Android – the penultimate mobile OS in today’s smartphone and tablet markets.

However, what you probably don’t see or notice is all of the things Facebook is doing in the background. Link to something on your Facebook timeline and every time it’s shared will count as another link. Google’s search engine algorithms (and those of other search engines) rely heavily on natural linkage to assist in ranking a page’s validity and value. Each link htat a page gets regarding specific phrases etc bumps up that page’s search engine ranking. Google might still be the one doing the searching, but Facebook is very much guiding Google on where to look.

Most websites will also have a “Like”, “Share” or thumbs-up button that automatically links to whatever Facebook account is already logged-in on that computer or device. This is just another way that Facebook encourages its users to link to articles and websites on their timelines. The number of “Likes” a page gets is also becoming a form of measuring said page’s popularity, success and quality.

Facebook also helps you find things in the real world by encouraging the inhabitants of your news feed to share their real world experiences and comment on them, even going as far as to “check in” and locate themselves on a map. That’s 900 million active users, most of who share their daily lives freely and regularly share opinions on venues, stores, products etc.

On top of that many websites, such as this one, are set up to automatically post videos and articles to their Facebook subscribers, rather than turning to RSS feeds like Google Reader. This system circumnavigates the need to use a search engine entirely, relying on solely Facebook links to help users navigate the web.

Of course Google has its own counters to all of this, such as Google+, but almost every attempt by Google to move in on Facebook’s turf has been relatively unsuccessful. For instance: Google+ has very few active users compared to the number of its accounts. Another example would be the question “how often to you sign in to a third-party service using a Google account compared to your Facebook account?” If the answer is anything other than “never” there’s a good bit that the Google service you’re referring to is your Gmail address, which is the very thing that Facebook will be aiming to eliminate as a sign-up tool with this move.

Now, it’s safe to assume that an app store launched by Facebook is going to be an adequately executed affair. Moreover, by the simple act of being a Facebook service it’s likely to see a huge amount of early adoption. As such there’s really no reason for future app developers to not include a Facebook login option in order to be eligible to post their apps on the Facebook App Center to obtain a wider level of exposure for their product. It’s a simple and effective way of ensuring that Facebook becomes the dominant means through which service accounts are created, rather than having people use their Gmail accounts.

Google might see itself lost one of the few remaining inlets to the social media world that it has going for it if Gmail sign-ups to third party apps go the way of the dinosaur.

Can Facebook and Apple Play Nice?

While it’s easy to see how the Facebook App Center will work with Android when you look at pre-existing third party Android app stores such as the Amazon Android Marketplace, it’s difficult to see how iPhone integration will work here.

Traditionally, when it comes to profits, Apple is very much that kid in the playground who never wanted to share. Just about everything on your iPhone is done and tracked via iTunes. This is a nifty little method of managing product quality for Apple, while maintaining enough control to take a piece of the profit from everything you throw on your iDevice.

If Facebook is planning to sell iPhone apps, how will that work with Apple’s current business model? If Facebook is to act like a middle-man, taking its own cut of each app sold and passing on the rest of the profits to Apple that could mean a bump in price for any iOS app sold on the FAC. If the prices are not raised, that would suggest that Apple is taking a hit on the percentage, which hardly seems like something Apple would willingly do.

The same question can be asked for in-app purchases. Currently on iOS in-app purchases work the same way as a direct-app purchase: the developer takes most of the money while Apple takes a decent percentage. It’s intriguing to wonder where Facebook will fit in to all of this. Will an app bought from the Facebook App Center have a different in-app purchase model that filters money to both Apple and Facebook, reducing the cut of the developer? There’s a myriad of questions that we’d love to see the answer to regarding this entire affair. Unfortunately they’re none too forthcoming right now so we’ll probably have to wait until the FAC’s impending full-release.

Overall

At the end of the day Facebook creating its own app store really makes sense. It’s not something that had to happen, but it’s definitely no shock, either. It’s also a move that could prove to see massive, slow-moving repercussions in the smartphone industry. Alternatively, it might ultimately change nothing at all.

Right now we’re mostly just keen to give it a go and put its offerings and overall execution up against pre-existing app marketplaces. If Facebook can come out with anything new or better than what we already have in place then that’s good enough for us. As we’ve seen countless times in the mobile industry good, unique ideas don’t stay unique for too long. It’s a smartphone world and those who take to long to keep up usually end up in dangerous or irretrievably hopeless situations just like WebOS, BlackBerry and Nokia.

Posted in Broadband, Mobile Phones, Tablets | Tagged Android, Apple, Facebook, iOS

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HTC One X Review

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Alex Angove

The HTC One X is HTC’s new Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) flagship device. Not only that, but the One X was the world’s first widely-released quad-core smartphone. As such it represents the next generation of the smartphone market and is an exciting indicator of things to come. For the meantime we got our hands on one to find out if it’s all that it’s cracked up to be and if the One X has a chance of taking some of the Android game back off of Samsung and delivering it to the waiting hands of HTC.

HTC One X Physical Design

The HTC One X represents a new approach taken by HTC towards case design. Taking a leaf out of Nokia’s Lumia style-book, the One X is crafted out of a single piece of machined polycarbonate. That means it’s light, feels great to hold, has a smooth surface that doesn’t appear cheap or glossy and it can be colourised without relying on paint. It’s also quite durable, as polycarbonate is capable of absorbing some of the shock. Even if it is scratched the nature of its manufacturing materials means that the obviousness of any external damage will be minimised, as the case is the same colour the whole way through so no discolouration should be evident.

The shape itself is still very HTC, but different enough for us to take notice. From the side the One X almost appears to be convexly curved like the Galaxy Nexus, but in reality the screen is almost flat. We say almost because at the edges there’s a slight fall-off, once again reminiscent of the Nokia Lumia line. This mild rounding makes for an incredibly comfortable experience when holding or using the device. It’s one of those small differences that helps draw the line between a solid smartphone and a premium flagship device.

Being a single piece there’s no tri-colour rear plate this time; the One X is the same colour the whole way around. The front and side edges have been glossed, making for a shinier appearance than the back, but it’s not particularly noticeable.

The USB charging port is found on the left, the volume rocker on the right and the power/lock button sits atop the device. It can occasionally be a bit difficult to hit the power button, but that’s more due to the large size of the One X, rather than any mechanical design flaws.

The speaker at the top of the handset falls away from the screen ever so slightly, allowing the One X to sit quite snugly against the ear without any discomfort. In fact, rather than a raised lip or bezel as we often see, the screen is actually the highest part of the device when sitting flat on a table.

One small problem is that the battery is not removable. It’s not an issue for most users, but a lot of people like the option of grabbing themselves that extra battery for those times when they spend a while in-between charging stations.

Folks with smaller hands should also be weary of the HTC One X’s size. It’s 4.7 inch display makes for a formidable form-factor. We didn’t have any problems with our large, clumsy hands, but we suggest actually physically holding either this phone or one of similar dimensions before deciding on a purchase. You might find it to be just a little too much of a stretch at the end of the day.

Overall we’d have to say that the One X features a wonderfully functional and stylish design. However, we did wonder at the inclusion of the 3 capacitive buttons sitting below the display. As we saw with the Galaxy Nexus, the ICS operating system (OS) allows and even anticipates the implementation of virtual on-screen buttons. We’ll get in to how this affected the user interface (UI) later, but for now we’ll just say that we found it intriguing.

Display and UI

The 4.7 inch 720p HD display of the HTC One X is simply gorgeous. Colours were vibrant, whites were impressively crisp and blacks were handled quite well. Viewing angles were also something that surprised us; the One X’s display didn’t seem to have any angles at which it began to lose image quality. At times it was almost like viewing an incredibly bright sheet of paper and bright it was. The default brightness setting was set at around to thirds of the potential brightness and even that was difficult to view straight-on in anything other than direct sunlight. We ended up setting it to just below half brightness and found that to be more than sufficient for our regular viewing needs.

The One X comes running the Android 4.0 ICS operating system underneath HTC’s very own Sense 4 UI. The mix makes for a wonderfully smooth and visually impressive experience and is probably the best Android interface we’ve used to date.

The standard HTC multi-purpose Lock screen is still there with its shortcuts to Email, Messages, Phone and Camera, as well as the option to simply unlock the phone. With ICS has come the new ability to pull down the notifications bar without first unlocking the phone. This is a fantastic addition and we can’t for the life of us figure out why it hadn’t been implemented on a wide scale before Ice Cream Sandwich. Obviously if you have password or face protection on then the ability to pull down notifications is blocked until your password has been entered or face has been recognised.

We love the idea of resizable widgets brought in with Ice Cream Sandwich. Not every widget can do it just yet, but those that can are customised easily enough. Simply tap and hold the widget, after releasing it small arrows will appear on each side. You can just drag these arrows out to resize. Adding new widgets to Home Screens is easy too. Tap and hold on any Home Screen and a widget menu will pop up. You can add widgets to any home screen from this menu, meaning that you can add multiple widgets to different screens without having to manually switch between them.

The UI itself was quite smooth, but we did find a few problems to do with lag time between making a command and it registering with the handset. Often within an app we would hit a tab, or press the back button and have to wait a few seconds before anything would happen. This became increasingly frustrating when, after a few seconds of nothing, we would hit the back button again several times only to have a chain of ‘Back’ commands suddenly fly out in rapid succession and we’d find ourselves back at the home screen.

Oddly enough, despite the powerful quad-core processor, this is the most lag time we’ve ever experienced with an HTC smartphone between input and registry. At first we considered that it might be due to HTC’s tendency to clutter up the available Home Screens with active and power-hungry widgets. However, after removing as many as we could we noticed no visible improvement in performance in the troubled areas.

To clarify, it’s not as if the HTC One X is a laggy device; far from it. It’s just that within certain apps, even common ones such as Words With Friends, we found it to have considerable lag on occasion. We adjusted to it quite quickly and after a short while it wasn’t so frustrating any more, but it remains nothing short of a curiosity that such a powerful handset would suffer from these kind of problems.

Overall apps launched and closed very quickly and multi-tasking didn’t seem to be a problem. The multi-tasking button that has replaced the Menu button in ICS didn’t actually require that much attention, as the One X seemed to be powerful enough to ignore running any number of processes simultaneously.

Concerning the lack of a Menu button, we were once again thrown in to the realm of minor confusion by the One X. It’s in no way HTC’s fault that Google decided to do away with a static Menu button and introduce the Multitasking key instead. However, Google seems to have intended any issues that would arise from this decision to be tackled by the use of virtual keys.

Virtual keys are what the Galaxy Nexus employs instead of capacitive buttons. Basically a virtual key does the same job as a capacitive button, except it is part of the main display and not a separate and static section of the interface. Virtual keys can change in size, light up when they are pressed, disappear when they are not needed and even have other keys appear alongside them when contextually relevant. This last bit of handy functionality is where the HTC One X seems to fall short.

Due to the lack of a hardware menu button and also the lack of ability to squeeze and on-screen menu button in beside the 3 main keys the One X was often forced to include a black button that ran the length of the bottom of the screen in situations where a menu button was necessary. This might not seem like much, but when one of the selling points of a device is the size of its screen then it would seem appropriate to make best use of that feature, rather than filling it up with unnecessary on-screen buttons. Obviously this was not a fatal flaw, but it’s still a minor issue that we feel could have been easily addressed by HTC.

Don’t let our moaning fool you; the HTC One X functioned quickly, smoothly and admirably for the most part. We might sound like we’re complaining a lot, but that’s just because the One X was such a premium piece of smartphone that all of the little flaws really stood out every time we encountered them. Like we said it’s probably the best Android experience we’ve had to date in terms of general UI navigation and the large 720p display was the proverbial HD cherry that really sealed the deal for us.

Camera

The One X is one of HTC’s new line of smartphones that carries the fancy ImageSense imaging chipset. ImageSense is HTC’s way of finally stepping up to the plate and attempting to wrestle the title of ‘best mobile camera’ from Apple.

Even so, HTC isn’t quite there just yet. The 8MP shooter on the One X was far better than anything we’ve seen from HTC thus far; it’s just not quite as good as the iPhone 4S’ offering just yet. Shots in well-lit areas came out fantastically and dimly-lit situations turned out better pictures than we’ve yet seen on Android with any kind of reliable regularity. We did notice some pretty intense light bleeding for shots with varying brightness, such as an indoor shot with bright sunlight bursting through a window in the background.

Photos could also be taken in rapid succession with an impressive degree of quality, depending on the lighting situation. Shots with flash came out well with minimal discolouration and video quality was comparatively equivalent to picture quality (ie: good in well-lit situations and tolerable in the dark). All in all we’d definitely give the One X’s camera a big thumbs-up and we hope to see this kind of progress continuing on in the Android market.

An added bonus to all of this was that our One X came with an added drop-box perk. Drop-Box is a cloud storage service that, in the context of the One X, acts as a backup for all of your photos and videos taken on your smartphone. Generally Drop-Box subscribers have to pay a fee to get anything over a 2GB storage account, but HTC One X owners will apparently get a full 25GB for no added cost. We, unfortunately, weren’t privilege to this perk as ours was just a review model, but we’re assured that

Battery Power and Heating Issues

Every manufacturer has its demons and for HTC it’s battery power. Traditionally HTC smartphone have suffered from significantly inferior charge retention to their contemporaries, but it’s definitely something that HTC has been making great strides towards improving of late.

The One X is a great example of an HTC smartphone that doesn’t suffer from the mistakes of its forebears. It may boast a large, HD screen and a quad-core processor but it still easily lasted a day when we hit it with medium-to-heavy use. As always removing any unused widgets from the Home Screens is advisable (especially the full-screen animated weather widget), as it will noticeably improve battery life further.

As we expected the HTC One X did have a few heating issues when pressed. Whenever we pushed it with a graphically intensive game, or when it was unsuccessfully searching for an internet connection, we found that the top of the handset heated up quite a bit. It wasn’t as bad as some other devices, such as the Galaxy S II or the Motorola Atrix, but it was still noticeable and, at times, uncomfortable. It’s not a deal-breaking issue but it’s definitely something to keep in mind.

Music and Video

Video playback on the One X was, unsurprisingly, awesome. The incredibly bright 720p display made for fantastic visuals and the large screen really allowed us to immerse ourselves in whatever we were watching. Not much detail to go in other than the fact that colour saturation was great and there was minimal-to-no image bleeding.

We did like the added touch of being able to take a screenshot whenever we wanted. Tapping the screen would bring up the standard menu, with a little shutter button that had been added to the right-hand side. Tapping said button would produce a freeze frame that saved itself in to your video folder. We can’t think of too many uses for it but it’s still a nifty little addition.

The music player was more than functional. It boasted a few aesthetic changes when compared to previous versions of the Sense music app, but overall it was the same old reliable system.

The main screen had 3 options up top: My Phone, SoundHound and TuneIn Radio. My Phone links to your own personal music selection. SoundHound is a music identification program, ie: activate SoundHound whenever you hear a song you want to know the name of and SoundHound will listen in and try to identify the artist and song title for you. TuneIn Radio is your basic modern smartphone Radio app. It has a variety of choices, but we mostly just stuck to our own personal selections.

Browsing and Keyboard

Browsing on the HTC One X was absolutely fantastic. The lengthy screen coupled with vibrant colours, potentially-blinding illumination and 720p HD resolution provided clear and easy website navigation, even on non-mobile sites.

The quad-core processor made short work of pinch-to-zoom commands and the HD resolution meant that even at maximum zoom text came out sharply with barely a whisper of visible pixilation.

On top of processor speed, we found the browser to be generally faster at loading web pages than other high-end devices that we’ve tested on the same network. We’d have to say that this was one of the best mobile browser setups that we’ve ever encountered.

The keyboard also benefitted from the large screen. Portrait-mode wasn’t incredibly easy for our large fingers, as the display is still quite thin compared to its length. However, we didn’t have any problems outside the norm and when switched to landscape-mode our clumsy digits flew across the screen with reassuring accuracy.

We never found the keyboard the lag behind our typing and switching between portrait and landscape was as fast as it was smooth.

The larger screen obviously made tasks like reading emails or messages very easy as well, adding to the overall air of simplicity.

The WhistleOut Opinion

Despite some the occasional bit of lag when executing a command the HTC One X was a simply fantastic smartphone. It looked great and really felt like a premium device when held in the hand. The user interface was, for the most part, smooth and functional. The display was astounding and online activities were functional to awesome. The camera was a significant improvement over previous models and the media integration was solid.

Obviously the heating issue is something to be mindful of, but we didn’t find it to be particularly worse than the current generation of dual-core smartphones so it’s in a way forgivable.

At the end of the day we’d definitely recommend that anyone looking for a new top-end smartphone give the HTC One X some serious consideration. It might be worth waiting till the end of May to see how the Samsung Galaxy S III fares, as well as what Apple has in store for us with its next generation of iPhone come mid-June. But if you’re absolutely after an Android smartphone right now we can’t think of anything better than the HTC One X.

Posted in Mobile Phones, Reviews | Tagged Android, HTC, HTC One X, Ice Cream Sandwich, Review

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Nokia Lumia 710 Review

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Alex Angove

The Lumia 710 is the mid-range forerunner of Nokia’s new Windows Phone (WP) Lumia range of smartphones. The new WP focus for Nokia brings with it not only a change in overall user experience, but some unique approaches to external design and a subtle feeling of style not seen for a while in the Nokia range.

Physical Design of the Nokia Lumia 710

At first glance the 710 can come off as unremarkable in appearance. If you’re viewing one of the two tonal options – white or black – with a matching back plate then the immediate impression is of a small and standard monochrome smartphone. However, it’s important to note that the 710 has some interesting options for customisation when it comes to the external casing.

While we were unfortunately only graced with a solid black unit, the 710 has a swappable rear plate. The back casing of the phone can be easily removed and replaced with another of different colour. This allows users a form of customisation that hasn’t really been seen before in the mobile market: the ability to customise and personalise the external appearance of their own phone.

We love the idea, as we believe that oftentimes a change is just as good as a holiday. Switching up the colour scheme of your device can actually provide the impression of a new experience and can serve to spice up what you may be beginning to perceive as a stale user interface. It’s not a particularly game-changing innovation, but we are already starting to see companies like Sony follow suit in this department.

Shape-wise the 710 is fairly standard. It’s a bit wider than we’ve come to expect from a smartphone of its size but that can be forgiven when taking the price range in to account. The rubberised rear-plate also seems designed more for impact dispersal and grip rather than keeping a slim profile.

Overall the device is quite small, sporting only a 3.7 inch display. This coupled with the rubberised rear plate the Lumia 710 provides an extremely sure grip. The curved design also provides for a comfortable experience.

One point of interest is that below the screen there are three hardware buttons. Usually with modern handsets we’ll see capacitive buttons here, with perhaps only one physical button in the middle. The three hardware buttons of the Lumia 710 (Back, Home and Search) are all part of the same raised panel. This can actually create a small amount of difficulty when trying to input a command on the fly. We found that we would occasionally press to close to in-between two of the keys and hit the wrong one. It wasn’t a major issue, but we feel like the phone would have benefited by 3 totally separate buttons, rather than 3 buttons sharing one clickable panel.