Google Nexus 4 review: Royal road!

At only $300 SIM-free (when most flagships charge $200 on a 2-year contract), the Nexus 4 flaunts a 4.7" WXGA IPS display and the most powerful chipset in an Android phone at the moment. It has of course the latest Android OS and it will be the first in line to get the new ones as they come in. If you are after an Android smartphone, it's hard to find reasons not to buy a Nexus 4, but some nagging doubts linger after the LG Optimus G review, where not everything turned out all roses and sunshine. Having spent some time with the Nexus, here's what we think are the headline features and what could've been better. Key features::
Flagship specs at a bargain Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support Penta-band 3G with DC-HSPA, up to 42Mbps downlink, HSUPA up to 5.76Mbps uplink 4.7" 16M-color WXGA True HD IPS Plus (768 x 1280 pixels) capacitive touchscreen, Gorilla Glass 2 Stock Android OS v4.2 Jelly Bean, fast updates Quad-core 1.5 GHz Krait CPU, 2 GB RAM, Adreno 320 GPU, Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset 8 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging, face detection, Photo Spheres 1080p video recording @ 30fps with continuous autofocus and stereo sound 1.3 MP front-facing camera, 720p video recording Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS 8/16GB of built-in storage microUSB port with TV-out support Bluetooth v4.0 Standard 3.5 mm audio jack Voice dialing Accelerometer and proximity sensor Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic 2100mAh battery Wireless charging (works with any Qi-compatible wireless charger) Main disadvantages No microSD card slot, no versions with more storage Mediocre display sunlight legibility Non user-replaceable battery Camera is less than stellar, no shutter key either No LTE support (not official anyway, and then only one band) The two biggest complaints since the LG Nexus 4 was announced have been the limited storage and the lack of LTE. But even those things can be overlooked as LTE networks outside the US are just getting started and unless you play a lot of 3D games or have a huge music collection, 16GB should be adequate. Anyway, the Nexus 4 looks certain to unsettle the competition. If it's available through the Google Play Store in your country, it's practically cheap enough to buy on a whim. With no contracts to worry about, we think there will be plenty of fresh Android converts.
Google Nexus 4 by LG in our office:: And that's the main goal of the Nexus line - encourage people to use Google's services. Once you're in, you can buy music, TV shows, movies, books, magazines, get cloud storage and documents, even buy stuff in the real world with Google Wallet. The limited inbuilt storage begins to be less of an issue if you use Google Music and Google Drive, you don't need to store all that much locally. The Nexus 4 is based on the LG Optimus G, so expect there to be a lot of similarities between the two phones but it also shares DNA with the pervious Nexus phone. Jump to the next page to see if it has its mom's eyes or its dad's chin.

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Noisy neighbours meet again in Manchester

England: Manchester City FC v Manchester United FC (Sunday 14.30) Sir Alex Ferguson labelled United's defending in last weekend's 4-3 win at Reading FC as "like a cartoon cavalcade", with eyebrows being raised at the usually obdurate Red Devils' vulnerability to crosses. "It's a worry, a concern," added Sir Alex, whose side have fallen behind in 15 games this season. "If we perform like that on Sunday, God knows what'll happen to us." Still, United's subsequent 1-0 home defeat by CFR 1907 Cluj hit them significantly less hard than a 1-0 loss at Borussia Dortmund and an early exit from Europe did City, who trail their neighbours by three points at the top of the table. "Now we've got to move on," said City midfielder Scott Sinclair – and what better way to do so than by creating a bit more noise to unhinge the neighbours?

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Celtic colts, Kolarov's 'mare and a gift horse

"No one gave us a prayer going into this group," said manager Neil Lennon, who was unable to watch as Kris Commons converted the penalty which secured victory against FC Spartak Moskva and sent Celtic into the UEFA Champions League knockout stages. The Bhoys defied expectations throughout, with emerging talents such as Victor Wanyama, Fraser Forster and Tony Watt to the fore. They gained a first away win in the competition, at the 21st attempt, in Moscow on matchday two, before a stunning 2-1 victory against FC Barcelona at a jubilant Celtic Park. Despite those two results, SL Benfica were second going into the final game, but as they were held by Barça, Commons' strike sparked Celtic joy. For captain Scott Brown, this is just the beginning: "I don't see why we can't go further in the competition."
Goal: Ivan Krstanović (GNK Dinamo Zagreb): Such was the delirium that ensued after Krstanović's 95th-minute penalty against FC Dynamo Kyiv you could have been mistaken for thinking Dinamo had won the UEFA Champions League. In fact, the forward had just earned the Croatian side their first point in this season's tournament – his goal ending a ten-hour drought in UEFA competition − and ensured Modri avoided equalling RSC Anderlecht's unwanted record of 12 successive group stage defeats. Krstanović's celebrations in the snow, shirt above head and mobbed by jubilant team-mates, were a sight to behold. "We all knew the negative records, but we managed to score," said the 29-year-old. "For the penalty, I just took the ball and didn't think too much."

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HTC BUTTERFLY PREVIEW!

For those who are not aware, the HTC J Butterfly is the company's first smartphone with a 1080p display. The Butterfly is almost identical to the J Butterfly, except it is designed to run on GSM networks worldwide. To recap the features of this device, the HTC Butterfly has a 5.0-inch, 1920 x 1080 resolution, Super LCD 3 with Gorilla Glass 2, Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 SoC with a quad-core 1.5GHz Krait CPU and Adreno 320 GPU, 2GB of RAM, 16GB internal memory (with a microSD card slot), 8 megapixel rear camera with 1080p video recording, 2.1 megapixel front facing camera, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS + GLONASS, NFC, 2,020mAh battery and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.like our fb page Urs good massanger

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SAMSUNG GALAXY CAMERA GC100 REVIEW!

The Samsung Galaxy Camera is one of the most exciting devices to come out of IFA. It's not the first Android-powered camera, but even if it manages a tiniest fraction of the Galaxy S III sales, it will give Android solid footing in the point-and-shoot market. Samsung Galaxy Camera live photos Guts-wise, the Galaxy Camera is based on the Galaxy S III. It has a 4.8" 720p screen, though it's an Super Clear LCD instead of S III's Super AMOLED screen, which had excellent sunlight legibility (an important feature for a camera). Unfortunately, we couldn't test how this screen handles sunlight (it's quite late here in Berlin), but Super Clear LCDs have pretty decent record, too. To give you a feel for the size of the camera, it's actually a bit shorter than the S III - 128.7mm vs. 136.6mm. This is because Samsung cut out the hardware controls and moved the Android keys on screen. Make no mistake, the Samsung Galaxy Camera is a big digicam and handling it doesn't feel anything close to handling a smartphone. At 19.1mm in its thinnest point, it's rather thick, and at 305g, it's rather heavy, too. The extra thickness was needed to enable goodies like a pop-up Xenon flash and 21x optical zoom lens. A look at the pop-up Xenon flash from the red Galaxy Camera • A look at the task manager The top of the device features a standard hardware shutter key with a zoom control around it. The control serves as a volume rocker when the camera is not active. A longer press on the shutter key activates the camera. The bottom of the device is pretty standard fare for point-and-shoots - you get a standard tripod mount and a big flap that covers the microSD and SIM card slots and the removable battery. There are two things we wish were different here - having a regular-sized SD card and a battery with a bit more juice than 1,650mAh (even the Galaxy S III battery is 27% bigger). The right side of the camera has a traditional grip, which adds to the thickness, but really improves your hold of the device. We quite liked the Expert mode on the camera. It presents a user interface that's modeled after a DSLR lens - you get several spinners that can adjust things like aperture, shutter speed, ISO and exposure compensation. The max aperture of the camera is F/2.8, which isn't quite ideal. There is full manual mode as well as Av (aperture-priority) and Tv (shutter speed priority) modes. Camera interface Even though the devices present at the event are not finalized, we managed to run some benchmarks and snap a few sample shots. You can find the benchmarks on the previous page, here are the camera samples (they were shot in 16:9 mode, so their resolution is 12MP): Samsung Galaxy Camera sample photos (12MP, 16:9 mode) The good news is you're not limited to using Samsung's camera app if you find it too confusing (some of us did). You can use Instagram, or any other camera launcher from the market, but chances are it won't give you the kind of control the default app does. The optical zoom doesn't work with other apps just yet, but there's an update coming that should fix it. Samsung Galaxy Camera hands-on video We also shot a video of the Galaxy Camera in action, to give you a better feel for device itself, the gallery app and the camera interface.

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