Mobile Network Comparison

Last week we presented a round-up of the most rugged and tough iPhone 5 cases available. For those of you who love your phones (or who’ve had to fork out for a replacement touch-screen and digitizer), protecting it is very important.

When a replacement iPhone 5 costs about £500, it’s definitely worth buying a decent case that will ensure it stays in one piece if it falls out of your pocket or gets dropped on a hard floor.

The winning case from our tests was the amazing Griffin Survivor which we thought was almost perfect. This amazing video shows just how effective it is at ensuring your phone and data stays in one piece.

The case meets US Department of Defense Standard 810F and UK Department of Defence Standard 00-35 and this video shows progressively tough tests such as smashing it through a wall, bowling down an icy hill and even squashing it with a Dodge Magnum RT.

Check it out!

Recent rumours are reported to be true as it emerges that online retailer Amazon will release its own 3D smartphone. Following a lot of guessing and official denials, it now seems pretty clear that Amazon is set to release its own phones some time this year. Already producing its own Kindle range of tablets and e-books, the e-commerce behemoth aims to bring the battle to tech rivals Google and Apple.

One of the most cutting edge devices thought to be coming later this year is a 3D smartphone that does not require glasses. Whether this will use advanced retina-tracking technology or work in a potentially similar way as the Nintendo 3DS handheld console has not been officially confirmed yet..

Amazon officials have refused to confirm the rumours but we’ve heard from insiders who are adamant that the Amazon phones are coming soon from the secretive Lab 126 facility in California. Industry experts say it is likely that there will initially be about four different models including the 3D version.

The smartphone hardware market is a very tough nut to crack as Asian manufacturers such as HTC have learned to their detriment in recent months. Even business-favourite BlackBerry has been feeling the pinch in recent years as the sector is increasingly dominated by two major forces – Apple’s iPhones running iOS and Samsung’s range of Android smartphones. Together they account for well over 50% of sales.

The gimmicky 3D screen will certainly be one of Amazon’s made selling points as it attempts to carve out a unique niche for itself in the already-mature smartphone market. Its success with its Kindle devices will be promising as well as its heft and might in the online retailing sector. Still, there’s no denying that the competition is very stiff and its far too early to make a call whether these new Amazon phones will be successful or not.

Amazon’s existing business model relies on selling hardware at very low margins indeed to tempt consumers with much better value than is available from other manufacturers such as Apple. Then, they hope to make their profits from on-device sales of content such as e-books and downloadable videos. Amazon already owns film-streaming service LOVEFiLM.

Amazon is definitely investing in the future with this move and will be hoping to keep investors on-side and increase revenues despite poor profit results for the company’s entire history and a recent backlash amongst consumers about the company’s dodgy tax-avoidance tactics. We’re not yet convinced by 3D on smartphones but it remains to be seen how well it works on these particular handsets. At the moment we’re keen to get more firm news about this but most of the available information is merely speculation and guesswork.

What do you make of this news? Can you see 3D smartphones being worthwhile? Is it too late for Amazon to enter the smartphone market? And how well do you think these new phones will sell? We’re looking forward to hearing your opinions and comments.

French technology company has announced that it will soon release its first smartphones. The new devices will all be touchscreen smartphones. They will be called the 35 Carbon, 50 Platinum and 53 Platinum and will be running Google’s Android OS.

Archos has been running since 1988 and is best known as a manufacturer of mp3 players and PMPs (Portable Media Players). It made a name for itself in the early days of mp3 players with the rugged Archos Jukebox series which first came out in 2000. These mp3 players bucked the trend for small flash-memory based devices as it came with a massive 20 GB hard drive inside.

Since then, Archos have been one of the few PMP manufacturers to bother to include a decent amount on on-device storage. While trendy iPod users are content with tiny players, those with decent sized mp3 collections or who prefer lossless formats have had to rely on Archos to produce quality players.

Unlike other competing devices, they also have very good compatibility being able to play Ogg Vorbis files and FLACs as well as mp3s. Best of all, they usually have great recording facilities too. These far superior features have set apart Archos over the years from its mainstream rivals.

In recent years, the company has been pushing DVRs and internet tablets that double as video and music players. In 2009, the first Android-based device was released – the Archos 5. It is now on its eighth generation of internet tablets and is still running on Android.

However, it has to be said that the company’s experiment with Android hasn’t been a 100% success. Although the Archos mp3 players boast far superior features to most other dveices, stability has been a major issue. Archos have also had a very poor developement cycle and often release devices will very out-of-date versions of the OS on them. Either that, or the hardware can’t support more recent releases.

The net result is that the Archos Android devices so far have been slow and buggy and come with Android versions that are several years old. This means they are not only slow but they also are a very poor advertisement for the platform.

It has been rumoured for some time that they would move into smartphones and, with this latest announcement, hopefully we will see a better standard of product being released.

All the Archos phones will be low priced with the cheapest, the Carbon 35, coming in at just £70. It, however, will already be out-of-date when it is released as it will only ship with the last version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich. It also boasts very impressive specs for the price – a 1 GHz processor, half a gig of RAM and a nice 3.5 inch screen. It even will have both front and rear cameras.

The next model up is the Platinum 50 which will be £180. This will run the most recent version of the Android operating system, Jelly Bean 4.1.2. The RAM is doubled compared to the Carbon 35 and it will have with a faster processor and a 5 inch screen. The Platinum 75 will be exactly the same specifications except that it will have a slightly larger 5.3 inch screen instead. It will set you back £200.

We’re quite excited to see what these phones turn out to be like, especially the cut-price Archos 35 Carbon. We’ll be back with more news nearer the release date which is currently scheduled for the end of May.

What do you make of this? Have you ever owed an Archos device before? Are you excited about their new phones? Is the budget end of the market too saturated already? And which model do you think will be the most successful?