This is the best LCD TV we’ve ever tested. Sony has had a tough ride in the last few years but after a catalogue of mistakes, it’s finally come good in the most spectacular of ways. The KDL-46HX853 takes LCD picture quality to a whole new level, particularly where contrast and motion handling are concerned. The set looks gorgeous too, and features what’s for our money the best – or at least the most sensibly focussed – online service around. This all adds up to an achievement made all the more remarkable when you consider that this outstanding TV is being delivered at a more aggressive price than the usually ultra-competitive Korean brands are offering on their range equivalents. To sum all this up, with the KDL-46HX853 Sony isn’t just back, it’s back with a vengeance.
The way the Toshiba BDX3300 doesn’t bother to disguise its BBC iPlayer, Acetrax, YouTube and Picasa services as apps is somewhat refreshing, since the functionality is identical to much more expensive – and certainly more polished, usability-wise – smart TVs and Blu-ray players. When it comes to pure Full HD picture quality, the Toshiba BDX3300 delivers, and we also like the fact that it can support an awful lot of digital files via USB and over a network. It may lack finesse and at times appears a tad archaic, but we can’t find it within us to criticise anything on a super-slim Blu-ray player that combines the best of the smart TV landscape with a price that hovers under £80/£120. For a simple 2D Blu-ray upgrade with some YouTube goodness, we can’t recommend the Toshiba BDX3300 highly enough.
Asus Transformer Pad 300 review
You can’t release a £399, 10.1-inch tablet and not expect comparisons with the iPad, so we’ll cut to the chase. The Asus Transformer Pad TF300 is currently one of the best 10-inch Android tablets you can buy, and represents better value with equivalent performance than the Asus Transformer Prime. The top-notch benchmark scores, wonderful use of the keyboard docking station, excellent battery life and superb usability make it a top recommendation in our eyes. If you’re platform agnostic and are tossing up between this and the iPad, things get trickier. The Transformer is better value, has double the storage, a fantastic keyboard dock which makes it much more versatile, and Ice Cream Sandwich closes the gap hugely. Individual needs and budget will determine if the Asus Transformer Pad TF300 is right for you, but we applaud Asus for marrying value and performance, and the TF300 comes highly recommended.
The TX-L42DT50B is a relatively high-end TV – that much is obvious from its slim depth and metallic bezel, the latter of which is some achievement considering Panasonic’s rather lacklustre history in this department. Feature-packed inside, we’re able to detect that this isn’t the brand’s flagship set, but there’s really no major flaws aside from a stubborn refusal to include 3D specs. It’s a decision which rather underlines why most brands – including Panasonic, to some extent – is quickly turning to passive 3D system with its 99p 3D glasses.
Toshiba’s 55ZL2 is designed to get any tech obsessive’s pulse racing. After all, it breaks new ground in not one but two huge areas. First it can genuinely produce a watchable 3D picture without you having to wear glasses. And second, to help it achieve its first innovation, it employs a native 4K or Quad HD pixel resolution for the first time on a domestic TV.
Amplifiers
Blu-ray players
Cameras
Hands on: Leica M Monochrom review
Desktops
CyberPower Infinity Achilles review
Gaming accessories
Graphics cards
Sapphire HD 7870 OC Edition review
Gigabyte HD 7850 Overclock review
Headphones
Incase Sonic Over Ear Headphones review
Plantronics BackBeat Go review
Laptops
Toshiba Satellite Pro C660-2F7 review
Hands on: Sony Vaio T13 review
Mobile phones
Printers
Processors
Routers
Asus EA-N66 Ethernet Adaptor review
Last week was utterly dominated by the Samsung Galaxy S3, but the merry-go-round of high-tech wares continues unabated and this week we’ve seen some really tasty treats.
The highly competitive cameras market continues to be an area of constant innovation – Nikon has been leading the way and the D3200 looks like being the must-have entry-level DSLR of 2012.
Elsewhere we’ve seen new graphics cards, Blu-ray players, phones and laptops, and we’ve tested them all…
This Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 then is one of the Kepler cards we’ve been desperately waiting for. The second tier cards in the Kepler line up were always going to generate more interest than either of the overly expensive GTX 680 or GTX 690. And they’re going to sell a hell of a lot more too.
The key thing here though is that there is so little difference in performance and architectural terms between the Nvidia GTX 680 and GTX 670. In fact with the frame rates you’re getting with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 it’s going to be rather difficult for us to recommend anyone buying the GTX 680 if they’re going to leave it at stock speeds.
Just 3.7cm tall and less than 20cm deep, there’s not an AV rack around that couldn’t take Samsung’s well-equipped Samsung BD-E6100 Blu-ray player. That fact that it’s 3D-capable will attract many, especially since that feature only appears to attract a premium of £30 or so over a bare bones Blu-ray deck, but in truth it’s only a polished user interface or two away from Samsung’s 2011 crop of Blu-ray players.
It’s a great value 2D and 3D Blu-ray player boasting excellent picture quality, impressive streaming and digital file playback. Samsung’s entry-level Samsung BD-E6100 stutters only on a slow Smart Hub interface that’s cluttered with novelty apps, services and even advertising.
Nikon has delivered an entry-level camera with real photographic punch. Borrowing elements from its more expensive siblings, the D3200 should appeal to a large section of would-be photographers. There’s lots of interesting technology crammed into the relatively small body of the D3200, including things which have trickled down from its more expensive siblings.
Those include features such as the Expeed 3 processing engine, which promises to deliver quicker processing times, low noise and different frame rates for the full HD video recording. Overall, we are impressed by the D3200 and are very much looking forward to properly putting it through its paces when the time comes.
With a serious matt black finish that denotes a enthusiast-targeted piece of kit without even delving into the riches of its feature set, the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC HX200V is one of the more impressively attired superzoom cameras out there.
Hands on: BlackBerry Curve 9320 review
Taking on the budget smartphone market is getting tough these days, but RIM’s new Curve 9320 is well-placed to achieve success. The new phone is a re-tooled version of the last iteration, the Curve 9300, and brings with it a very familiar design.
This week’s other reviews:
Cameras
DECT phones
Archos 35 Smart Home Phone review
Desktops
Zotac Zbox nano XS AD11 Plus review
Graphics cards
Hard drives
Buffalo DriveStation Velocity review
Laptop accessories
ReTrak Retractable Universal 70W Notebook Wall Charger review
Laptops
Acer Aspire Ethos AS8951G-9630 review
Hands on: HP Envy Spectre XT review
Hands on: HP Envy Ultrabook review
Mice
HP Wireless Optical Mobile Mouse review
Mobile computing
Hands on: Kingston Wi-Drive 64GB review
Mobile phones
Hands on: Samsung Focus 2 review
Hands on: HTC Evo 4G LTE review
Hands on: Droid Incredible 4G LTE review
Portable Audio
Printers
Storage
Tablet cases
Hands on: The OtterBox Defender for the new iPad and Samsung Galaxy Note review
Tablets
Hands on: Toshiba Excite 13 review
Televisions
Five months into his reign, Research in Motion CEO Thorsten Heins will be facing the toughest crowd of them all in Orlando next week: Disgruntled BlackBerry developers who are quickly losing faith in their platform.
Reuters is reporting that Research in Motion will hold their annual BlackBerry World conference in Orland, Florida next week, but given the rough year the company has had, it’s likely to be a considerably more subdued affair.
While Apple’s similar WWDC event held in San Francisco June 11-15 sold out in just two hours and Google I/O is likely to enjoy a similar fate, BlackBerry World is expected to focus more on stopping the company’s bleeding more than about new BlackBerry 10 products, which aren’t expected until October at the earliest.
RIM has already reduced the size of the event by cancelling a traditional presentation for financial analysts in the wake of a string of bleak news from the company. That event will now be held closer to when the new BlackBerry 10 products go on sale later in the year.
“In the year since RIM’s last Orlando conference, the company has issued a string of disappointing financial results, suffered an embarrassing global network outage and watched its share price tumble by 75 percent,” the report notes. “Lazaridis and Balsillie quit under pressure in late January, replaced by Heins, a former Siemens AG executive who ran RIM’s hardware business for several years.”
“Expectations are so low I don’t think it’s possible to disappoint investors,” said National Bank Financial analyst Kris Thompson. “The conference isn’t for investors anyway; it’s for customers, developers and partners.”
Perhaps the biggest news from BlackBerry World will arrive in the form of a prototype BlackBerry 10 device, which RIM is expected to hand out to developers for testing of their apps. While the company is stressing this hardware “bears no relation to the finished product,” you can bet that tech blogs will get their hands on one in search of clues to as to where the once-iconic product might be heading.
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
(Image courtesy of BGR)
HTC’s ‘One’ range of Android smartphones represents the company’s great hope of a 2012 financial comeback, and we’ve now reviewed all three models.
The HTC One V is the most affordable of the three, and you should check out our review if you’re looking for a premium handset for a reasonable price.
Elsewhere it’s been another exciting week in the world of cameras so do check out our cameras channel.
Bringing impressive specs to a more entry-level friendly price point, the HTC One V is a smartphone that will help push user expectations of competitively priced handsets to a new level. Far from a beige device that will simply blend into the highly competitive crowd, the HTC One V features enough standout specs and impressively simple user interface characteristics to separate it from the throng of devices all vying for the same limited custom.
Although not perfect, the handset’s 1GHz Qualcomm CPU keeps the device zipping through content at an impressive pace, with little lag when jumping between apps, menus and the selection of heavily skinned home screens.
The Panasonic HC-V700 has some really stand out features to remind you that smartphones and small Sony Bloggie-style cameras can’t do everything a bigger unit can. With its wide-angle lens, massive zoom and image stabilisation, it’s easy to see the technological advantages of the HC-V700. Unfortunately, it proved to be only competent at actual image quality, and at £450, that inevitably knocks it down from being an essential purchase.
It’s great to find that the D800 isn’t just a triumph of numbers, and that the 35.3Mp sensor actually delivers on its promise – capturing bags of detail. The surprise bonus is that noise is actually pretty well controlled and the dynamic range is very impressive.
For those interested in stepping up to a full-frame camera, the D800 represents a good investment. You get pretty much all of the best features of the D4 in a more compact and lighter body, with a much higher pixel count for just shy of half of the price.
Three years after making its first entrance into the compact system camera arena with the PEN E-P1, Olympus has gone back to its roots again to produce the OM-D, with its retro styling owed to its analogue predecessor.
The Panasonic Lumix TZ30 is quite an expensive compact camera, although when you take into account the raft of functions it starts to appear good value. Features are one thing, though – image quality is quite another. Although the Panasonic Lumix TZ30 is capable of capturing good pictures, we don’t feel the camera’s images match the high levels of performance it delivers elsewhere.
Home cinema systems
Laptops
Acer Aspire Timeline M3 review
Samsung Series 3 NP300E5A review
Mice
Logitech m600 Touch Mouse review
Mobile phones
Routers
Trendnet TEW-692GR Dual Band Wireless Router review
Asus RT-N66U Dark Knight review
D-Link DHP-1565 Wireless N PowerLine Gigabit Router review
Software
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 review
It’s the beginning of another DonorsChoose Challenge! From now until the end of the month we’ll be raising funds for public school classrooms with the help of DonorsChoose.org, my second-favorite site on the Internet.
ALL donations up to 0 will be MATCHED if you enter the code MACLIFE at checkout — this is a first for us, and I could not be more excited. We have a chance to raise soooooo much moneeeeeeyyy!!!
At the end of the month, I’ll be doing a big prize drawing from everyone who donates to a project on our Giving Page, and emails me the receipt (susie at maclife dot com). No minimum, any donations over are fine. But give as much as you can, especially since the more you give, the bigger the match will be!
And to get things started right, I’m offering some bonus prizes through Wednesday morning. This bonus is all about photography.
Taking photos helps you look at the world through new eyes, and you wind up noticing things you might not have ever seen before. I always wanted to take a photography class in school, but I never got the chance — this was back in the film days, and film and the materials to develop it were simply cost prohibited. But today’s kids live in the age of digital, so all they really need is a camera and a great teacher, and there’s no limit to how many frames they can shoot.
Everyone who donates to this project, a classroom in Michigan looking for an SLR for their photography club, will get a 50% discount code for FX Photo Studio Pro. And three lucky winners will get a free coopy of Snapheal, MacPhun’s remarkable software for erasing unwanted objects from your pictures, and other editing magic. (Grab a demo of Snapheal here.)
The deadline to enter for the bonus prizes is 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18 — forward your email receipt to me at susie at maclife.com to enter. You’ll also be put in the big prize drawing happening at the end of the month. And DON’T FORGET to enter the code MACLIFE at checkout to have your donation matched!
Any questions? Check out the FAQ or email me and I’ll help you out. No go forth and make a difference!
