Smartphone Water Damage! What to Do When Your Phone Takes a Dive

THE GADGET GURU'S ADVICE FOR DEALING WITH WATER DAMAGED SMARTPHONES

Water Damage.jpg

Summer time is that fun time of year that we get the most occurrences of water damaged phones. It’s hot outside and people are often swimming, boating, playing in the fire hydrants and sprinklers to escape the heat.

Since we are so attached to our beloved smartphones and can't be without them for even a few minutes, we sometimes lose all sense of mind and go head first into the cooling water, forgetting that our phones are tucked away in a pocket or in the clutch of our hands.

Swimming holes can spell disaster for technology. But as summer comes to a close, there are still plenty of other ways that smartphones can meet their demise in a watery grave. One of the most common is actually the toilet bowl. As a matter of fact, I just got a toilet-damaged phone in the shop last week.

Whatever the case, it’s critical to know what to do when your smartphone takes a dive in the swimming pool, the beach, or a hopefully-fresh toilet. 9 times out of 10, just from lack of being taught, people do the wrong things and end up roasting their phone when it could have been saved.

That being said, here’s what you need to know if you EVER have the misfortune of taking your smartphone for a refreshing swim!

1) Do NOT check to see if your phone still works by activating the screen. If you do, you might short out the backlight or fry the logic board. After a phone gets wet, the last thing you want to do is put a surge of electricity through it. If the screen is asleep and you press your home button or power button waking it up, just to check to see if it still works, you could cause the battery to dump ALL of its remaining electricity into the phone.

2) If the phone was already off, do NOT try to reboot it. It might turn back on, but that could be the last time it DOES turn back on after you short out the logic board.

3) Do not set it out in the sunlight to dry. The sun will bake the LCD assembly and ruin it.

4) If you happened to have put your phone in a bowl of rice for a few hours, or even days, don’t test it and turn it on until you take it to a repair shop. No matter how long you leave it in rice, it’s not going to suck up all of the moisture trapped inside of the phone.

Those are the don’ts. Read those 4 points again to make sure it soaks in (no pun intended.) Now let’s move on to what you should do after your phone has gone skinny dipping!

Once you retrieve the phone from the water, dry it off as quickly as possible and wrap it in a towel or absorbent cloth. And again, DO NOT TURN IT ON. Remember, if you turn the phone on, all of the electricity left in the battery might discharge all at once and burn up your phone. It will sound like French fries dropping down in hot grease. You might even smell smoke. This isn’t the barbecue you want at your family outing. Leave the barbecuing to the grill.

Next, get your phone inside if you can and put it in a bag of rice. Believe it or not, I’ve heard reports of people putting their phones in COOKED RICE. Yes, that has actually happened. Please don’t put your phone in cooked rice, and don’t pour gravy over it. And don't butter the rice. Dry, UNCOOKED rice is what you want. The rice will absorb some of the moisture, drawing it away from the inside of the phone and get the drying process started at least. A Ziploc bag is best.

Once you get the phone in the rice, contact me (or your local smartphone repair shop) ASAP. An extra word of advice, don’t try to dry out your phone with a hair dryer or heat gun. You could end up doing more damage to the phone. Just get it in the hands of an expert who knows what they’re doing, someone who knows the proper amount of heat that can safely be applied.

When I get a phone that is water damaged, the first thing I do is open up the phone to check for water. If there is water, I blot out as much as possible, and then I dry the logic board and components with a professional heat gun. I know the limits of heat a phone can receive before it can be damaged.

Next I remove the battery, and check the connectors for moisture. I can usually tell if a battery has been ruined just by sight. Once I determine the condition of the battery, I check for the most minimal clues that the logic board still works. Then I let the phone continue to dry overnight.

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Sometimes the LCD assembly will be fried, which means it needs to be replaced. The backlight of the LCD assembly can get zapped and black out the screen. You can tell if the phone’s logic board is still okay by the LED charging light. The battery is then checked with an amp/voltage meter to see if it is still functional.

If the phone does not boot, my last choice is to disassemble it completely to give the logic board a solvent bath which forces out any remaining water. At that point I can try again to see if it will boot up. Sometimes this works, and sometimes it does not. But it is the last option for recovery.

It’s hard to say what percentage of phones can survive water damage. I’ve had a phone dropped in salt water that was entirely rusted on the insides that I was able to recover, and I have had phones that showed very little traces of water that ended up not surviving. It’s very unpredictable.

But the best method of dealing with water damage is to prevent it from happening in the first place. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

Now let’s move on to my best advice to keep yourself out of harm’s way when it comes to your precious smartphone.

Things to do to prevent water damage:

  • Leave your phone inside before you go out to the swimming pool or the creek. Keeping your phone as far away as possible is best. Remember that water splashing out of the pool onto your phone can cause just as much damage as a phone that has been fully submerged. It doesn't take much!

  • Give your smartphone a break and be one with nature. Enjoy the outdoors undisturbed and uninterrupted from the distractions of your phone, and it will be safely waiting for you when you return.

  • Use a LifeProof case if you can’t be away from your phone while swimming. Even though they aren’t very good at preventing breakage from dropping, it will give you a better chance of survival in water if it is accidentally submerged. But remember, no case can provide 100% protection against water damage even if they are made for that purpose.

  • Last but not least, if you don’t have insurance on your phone, get supplemental insurance coverage NOW. You don’t have an option of owning a smartphone in 2017 without insurance, because these new devices are just too expensive and they are very intricate and susceptible to damage.

  • Double last but not least, backup your phone to the cloud RIGHT NOW. You don’t know how sad it makes me to tell a person who hasn’t ever backed up their phone that their precious pictures and videos are lost forever. Back up your phone on a regular basis. Better yet, set your phone to do automatic backups.

I hope you never have to deal with with a smartphone water disaster. But if you do, please remember my tips, and share with everyone you know. You might save a friend from suffering significant smartphone misery!

Carlton Flowers
The Gadget Guru

 

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Recall - Breaking It Down

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE GALAXY NOTE 7 RECALL

If you are a Samsung fan, you've probably heard about the Galaxy Note 7 recall by now, especially if you were one of the first in line to get it, and you own one. I've had lots of questions about this issue, so we're going to spend a little time and break this down.

So why did Samsung recall all of the Note 7 smartphones? This was due to a problem with the battery cells failing on 35 phones (as of today's date) which caused them to catch fire, and also explode. Of the million or so phones that are out there, this is an extremely small number. But if you're one in a million that has a phone blow up in your face, I don't think you'd appreciate being told that it’s only a low percentage that fail.

The problem happens due to bad battery cells that overhead when the lithium layers inside the battery are compromised, and short circuit. This is something that has been more of a common problem with iPhones since the iPhone 5, but I suppose Samsung wanted to join the bad battery party and share in the attention.

The reason we are seeing so many battery problems as of late is because the design engineers are making thinner phones, thus needing thinner batteries, but with more power than their predecessors. When you smush the battery layers to minimum thickness, and add more power, you have more of a chance for failure to occur. There’s no way around it.

All of these batteries come from China, from some of the same suppliers, and from the same manufacturing processes. And it’s going to take a long time to get all of these phones replaced. You can’t simply pop out the battery and replace it like you could with the older Samsung phones (from Galaxy S4 and earlier). The back battery plate is glued on, and you have to remove a few things to free up the battery that is directly wired into the logic board.

You’ve got a couple of options here in the US for having your phone replaced. First, you can turn in your Note 7 and wait for the replacement. You’ll probably need a backup phone while you wait. Or, you can trade your Note 7 in for an S7 Edge, or regular Galaxy S7 and be refunded the difference in price (I think it’s around $100).

You can call Samsung at 1-800-SAMSUNG to get your exchange kicked off. For all your trouble, they are offering $25 phone bill credit to most major suppliers, so make sure you ask about that. You can either send in your phone directly to Samsung, or work with the retailer where you bought the smartphone originally.

Is it worth all this trouble to own the Galaxy Note 7? I say absolutely YES. I own the Galaxy Note 5, and I can’t live without the S Pen stylus. If you’re a big fan of the S Pen and all of the advanced features that come with it, it’s worth replacing and sticking with the Note 7. It will be the most advanced smartphone on the market, even after the iPhone 7 has been released (this is the first time Samsung has outdone Apple to the point where their subsequent next-model release doesn’t match the current Samsung model’s specifications).

If you’re sick and tired of all these battery problems with your new Samsungs and fancy iPhones, you need to write the designers and tell them to go back to the days of fat candy bar phones and stop trying to win the wafer-thin smartphone war. Until then, get used to problems like this. It won’t be the last.

Carlton Flowers
Gadget Guru Supreme

Microsoft & Nokia Reach Market Dominance In 2015... Or Not

BOLD PREDICTIONS FIZZLE AS 2015 COMES TO FRUITION

A few years ago, I was on the bandwagon of belief when all of the tech pundits made bold predictions that Nokia & Microsoft would reach total market dominance over Android & Apple by the year 2015. What happened?

We all bought the story because of the reasoning, that Nokia once dominated the world of feature phones, and that Microsoft dominated the world of operating systems. Windows Mobile plus Nokia hardware was supposed to equal unparalleled success in the smartphone market.

But what happened?

All of the cards foretold of fortunes to be made by these two tech juggernauts, and the planets were supposedly lined up to create the stage for the impending takeover of the smartphone world. But now that we have reached 2015, where is Microsoft and Nokia in the grand scheme of things?

Apple continues to dominate with the new iPhone 6 and 6+, with the new iOS 8 platform. And Samsung continues to squash the Android market with its flagship Galaxy products, powered by Android KitKat. But our "match made in heaven" comprised of Microsoft and Nokia seems to be lagging far behind, as they always have.

I thought Microsoft and Nokia had a great start with the Lumia 920 smartphone, and all of the later versions of their device. The operating system was supposed to be super easy to use, and a much better match for those of us using Windows based PCs. I thought I would be a prime target for converting to Windows on my smartphone, since I use a PC and a laptop every day.

But it never happened. I've tested and tried the Nokia devices using the Windows Phone platform. While I did find it easy to use, I worried about not having the ability to find all of my most favorite apps under their system. When I switched from Apple to Android in 2012, I was able to download about 80% of my most used apps on the Android platform.

I'm hard-pressed to believe that Windows will capture the attention of developers around the world and motivate them to bring all of my favorite apps to the Windows Phone market. It hasn't happened yet, and I don't have much confidence believing it will in the near future.

While the Windows-based Nokia devices are super slick and durable, I have found them to be a total pain-in-the-derrier when it comes to servicing and repairing the hardware. As the owner of a smartphone repair shop, I have learned to send Nokia smartphone owners to my competitors down the street. Cracked screen? Busted LCD panel? Take it somewhere else, because it's not worth the headache.

That might be part of the reason why Nokia failed to dominate the market as predicted. It might just be that Microsoft and Nokia never became "cool". Whether their devices and operating system functionality is great, or a pile of crap, nothing matters until their products become a "thing".

The smartphone market is like the fashion industry. Until Microsoft and Nokia become "cool" in the minds of consumers, they will never hit critical mass and dominate the market. I would love to see a competitor break into the Apple/Android monopoly, but I don't believe we will witness such an even for a few years if anything.

In the meantime, It's Samsung & Android for me on the smartphone front, Apple's iPad for my tablet, and my Windows-based custom PC for my desktop.

What do you think the reasons are behind the failure of Microsoft and Nokia to fulfill the predictions of the past? I'd sure like to hear your opinion!

Carlton Flowers
The Gadget Guru

iPhone 6 Plus vs Samsung Galaxy Note 4 - This Will Shut You Up

HIDEOUSLY OBVIOUS REASONS I CHOOSE THE GALAXY NOTE 4 OVER IPHONE 6 PLUS

iPhone 6 Plus vs Samsung Galaxy Note 4

The iPhone 6 Plus and the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 are out on the streets. The talking Apple heads claim that the iPhone 6 Plus is the hands-down winner over the new edition of the Note series.

Even tech blog sites are giving the checkered flag to Apple over Samsung in this race to have the most phabou phablet. It doesn't stack up per the tech specs, but Apple clearly has the most votes of confidence.

Everyone has an opinion about device brands and it is mostly due to preference. But I'm having a hard time trying to follow the "logic" of the loyal Fruit Cult following. I don't think they care what the specs are at all, it's just a foregone conclusion that the Apple device will magically be "better" by default.

In fact, I'd like to know exactly what kind of hallucinogenic drugs these people are doing to think the specs give Apple the win, because it would seemingly take some pretty strong stuff to overlook this helpful little handful of hardware facts...

  • The CPU - the Note 4 uses an Octa core processor while the iPhone 6 Plus sports dual core
  • 1.9GHz cpu processing speed on the Note 4 compared to 1.4GHz on the iPhone 6 Plus
  • Screen resolution of 2560 x 1440 on the Note 4 versus 1920 x 1080 on the 6 Plus
  • Super sharp screen on the Note 4 packs 515 pixels/sq.in but iPhone 6 Plus is only 400pix/sq.in.
  • 16Mp camera on the Note 4 as opposed to 8Mp on the 6 Plus
  • Front-facing camera on the Note 4 has twice the resolution than it's Fruity Phablet counterpart
  • Real multitasking on the Galaxy Note 4, nothing of the sort on the iPhone 6 Plus
  • A whopping 3 gigabytes of RAM packed into the Note 4 while the 6 Plus gets a paltry 1Gb
  • 3,220 mAh of battery power on the Galaxy Note 4 edging out the 2,915 mAh on the 6 Plus
  • Killer download speed of 42.2Mbps on the Galaxy Note 4 while iPhone 6 Plus drags along at 7.2Mbps
  • The super solid build of the metal-band-clad Note 4 as opposed to the lighter, cheaper, more slippery feel of the iPhone 6 Plus

My conclusion? The amount of hallucinogenic drugs or head-meds needed to "make" the iPhone 6 Plus a better device choice than that of a Samsung Galaxy Note 4 would therefore be significant. But right when you think logic and hardware specs rules the day, I will say this...

I like the look and feel of the iPhone 6 Plus better than the Galaxy Note 4, and would have chosen it over the Android product if Apple included a pen digitizer on their device. Plus the lacking hardware specs don't appear to give it any less of a speedy user experience.

So there you have it.  Shocked that Mr. Android Boy would say such things? Well you shouldn't be. The point is, none of the specs listed for or against a device amount to a hill of beans. It's all about user preference and the user experience.

For me, the lack of a pen digitizer on Apple mobile devices is a deal-breaker. The Galaxy Note 4 is close enough as a great device that I will stick with it just to have my digitizer pen. I can live with the design changes that I don't like as much, as long as I have the digitizer.

Ironically, the one thing Apple Fruit Cult members boasted about most was that their devices were solid and heavy, while Samsung's devices felt cheap, light and "plasticky" (which I prefer). The chickens have come home to roost.

Carlton Flowers
Gadget Guru

Top 5 Ways You Can FUBAR Your Smartphone & How To Avoid It

MOST COMMON WAYS SMARTPHONES GET FOULED UP BEYOND ALL RECOGNITION

Smartphones help to make us smart, when they are taken care of. But people are stupid, and can tend to be careless. When you combine mindless busy people with expensive smartphones, you get some pretty common mishaps that spell disaster for your sanity and your bank accounts.

In order to help you avoid disaster and the devistation that comes along with iFUBAR'ing your iPhone (or other Android device), let's look at the top five mishaps and hope you will keep these in the back of your mind before you do something stupid.

Just so you know, I have done three of these. So I am your primary example of smartphone user stupidity! That being said, let's look at the Top 5, each with my tips on how you can avoid each type of FUBAR stupidity.

1) Toilet Baptism - Did you know that 30% of smartphones end up in the toilet? I was surprised to learn this truth. Water damage can spell the end of your smartphone, especially if you try to turn it on and check it after giving it a swim.  

How to avoid: go back to reading magazines and books during bathroom time. For goodness' sake... you probably need a 10-minute break from that ratchet little device anyway.

2) Death By Buttocks - I did this one myself, just 4 months ago. You're busy doing something, but you want your phone close. So you shove it in your back pocket. Forgetting it is there, you sit down on something. For me, it was an old car seat cushion on the floor. I was working on a car. Even with the padding, my butt cheeks applied enough pressure to ever so slightly flex the LCD and destroy it. The glass didn't even break, but no more display.

How to avoid: get a fanny pack, no more back pocket stashing. Remember that you won't remember stashing it back there in the first place.

3) The "Tuck-And-Forget" - I cannot tell you how many times I have done this, and I never learn. With this destruction method, it involves getting in your car. Your phone is in your hand, and you figure you'll just tuck the phone in between your legs whle you drive, so you don't drop it in under the seats or step on it. As soon as you tuck it under your legs, you forget it's there. When you get out of the car, the phone shoots out like a torpedo and skips across the parking lot.

How to avoid: Mount a smartphone holster on your dashboard.

4) The Finger Fumble - This is the most basic and common way to FUBAR your smartphone. You think you have your device securely in your hands, and for no apparent reason, your fingers fumble the phone and it takes a nice long trip down to the ground. What makes this worse is the "catch-the-phone-with-your-foot" save method, which only makes it worse. Each and every time I have tried this save, I end up drop kicking the phone and sending it another 10' through the air, only to suffer an even harder fall.

How to avoid: get a big fat solid case. You will never solve the finger fumble, it will happen. You can only minimalize the damage it causes!

5) The "Set-It-And-Forget-It" - We've all done this at some time or another. It usually ends in a most tragic way. It starts with you loading something into your car. Your smartphone is in your hand, so the closest place you can put it is on top of your car (or on the trunk deck). By the time you load your stuff, you've forgotten where the phone is. You peel out, the phone slides off the car, and falls perfectly underneath your tire to die a quick death of mega crunching. Seems like a stunt crew would have trouble reproducing this sequence of events, but it works like a charm when it's your expensive smartphone.

How to avoid: put a sticker on your car that says "Do NOT place expensive objects on this slick, shiny surface, you putz!"

None of us want our smartphones fouled up beyond all recognition. So recognize these tips, and save yourself from frustration and the depletion of your bank account! Do you have any FUBAR stories you'd like to share with others? Chime in the comments section and tell us all! You might save us all!

Carlton Flowers
Chief FUBAR Prevention Expert

Top 5 Reasons To Consider The New Samsung Galaxy S5

SAMSUNG GALAXY S5 AVAILABLE FOR PRE ORDER ON 3/21/2014

Okay folks, Samsung has announced opening day for pre orders on the AT&T version of the Galaxy S5 smartphone! Let's take a look at the top 5 reasons that you should consider grabbing an S5 hot off the presses and be the first to get your hands on one when they ship.

1) Standard Price Point - The Galaxy S5 will be available for the standard contract price of $199. Sure, the price will drop over time, but why wait and end up with a smartphone that is going to become obsolete? If you want the cutting edge, get on the edge now. It's not worth waiting several months just to save fifty bucks, more or less. This phone is packed with blazing fast hardware, and tons of new gadgety features.

2) Fingerprint Sensor - Like Apple's iPhone 5S, the Galaxy S5 will come standard with a fingerprint scanner for unlocking the phone. The scanner is built underneath the actual display, so it doesn't take up any space and make the unusable portion of the phone any bigger. I would find high use of the sensor, because unlock patterns are a pain in the rear. I normally turn off the security for this reason, and that's a dangerous thing to do with a smartphone. They've really stepped up the ease of total security with this feature. Well worth the effort!

3) 16 Megapixel Camera - The new camera on this phone breaks records again. Sure, there are other models with ridiculous cameras like the 41Mp lens on the Nokia Lumia. But this is the best possible camera you can have on a smartphone without adding ridiculous bulk. Plus the new features that are packed into camera functionality are seriously enticing. They knocked it out the park with this camera, again.

4) Super Fast Processing Power - The Galaxy S5 will set you on the cutting edge of speed with its 2.5GHz quad core processor. For the non-techies, this just means that you will be able to open applications with blazing speed, and multitask apps without dragging down the phone. Everything speeds up when you have a powerful processor like this. Add in 2Gb of RAM, and you won't be sitting and waiting much at all to perform any function on this smartphone.

5) Awesome Display - They've upped the quality of the display yet again with a 5.1" full HD Super AMOLED screen that has 1080 by 1920 resolution and 432ppi pixel density. That means brilliant colors, deep black color, amazing contrast, and viewing that can give you enjoyment like watching an LED TV. Samsung has always brought their "A Game" with the display. This one continues to impress like all previous models. Why settle for less?

Sure, there's plenty more that I could drone on about. But this is enough to kick you off the fence if you are trying to make a buying decision. Chances are, you won't be disappointed with this device if having the best is what you want. All gadget nerds (like me) should be solidly satisfied with what it has to offer.

This is no mediocre incremental upgrade from the Galaxy S4. It will run faster, download data quicker, and tease your eyes with its brilliant display, all while giving you plenty of added features and options to give you the best smartphone experience possible. So there you have it!

Carlton Flowers
Galaxy Watchman

 

New Galaxy S5 - Top 5 Reason Samsung Engineers Are STUPID

WHY SAMSUNG ENGINEERS GET THE "STUPID SIGN" ON GALAXY S5 FEATURES

Time for another Top 5! This time, we will give you the top five indisputable reasons why Samsung enginerds have about as much common sense as a tree stump when it comes to the latest and greatest flagship smartphone coming from the far East, the Galaxy S5:

1) No Text Reflow - Want to be able to zoom in to see text with ease, but without panning side-to-side? You're not gonna be able to do that with the Galaxy S5 stock browser.

2) Must Use After-Market Browsers To Read - Tired of panning on smartphones when the text is not reformatted to fit the screen? You can download an after-market browser. But that means you don't get to use all the new gadgety cool tricks and features that the stock browser provides like tilt scrolling, eye scrolling, and touchless gestures. Pure stroke of stupid if you ask me.

3) The Text Reflow Is M.I.A. - How do you like pounding your head on the table after trying to read tons of text on your smartphone? You better get a helmet and get used to it if you buy a Galaxy S5 this spring.

4) Lack of Text Reflow - How bright are the Samsung enginerds to throw in everything but the kitchen sink into the stock browser... EXCEPT TEXT REFLOW? Ya got me, partner. If they could only dumb them down to include the most obvious advantageous function of the browser, that would be nice. But I guess they aren't HTC engineers.

5) Text Reflow No-Show - We complained when the Galaxy S2 didn't have it. We passed rumors about it coming with the stock S3 browser before it came out, and were sorely disappointed. Then we groaned and pounded our heads when it was left out AGAIN on the fabulous Galaxy S4. So if you're holding your breath waiting for it to be included on the Galaxy S5, plan on turning blue.

So there you have it folks! If this doesn't prove that the Samsung enginerds are stupid, I don't know what does. I guess you can tell that this text reflow thing really chaps my buns. Hopefully that has been made obvious here.

I've stuck by Samsung thus far, and it is by far the best smartphone on the market... in my opinion. But if someone releases a device that can out perform and function as well as the Galaxy S5 when I'm due for an upgrade, it's bye bye Samsung for me.

Carlton Flowers
Text Reflow Activist

 

My Top 5 Reasons I Won't Get A New iPhone

TOP 5 - WHY I WON'T BE BUYING A NEW IPHONE ANYTIME SOON

Here's the first of a series of "Top 5" lists! Today's top 5? Why you won't see me in line anytime soon buying an iPhone 5, 5S, 5C, 6, M, Mega, Mini, or anything else they come out with. Here we go!

1) It's Too Small - my eyes are too old. I can't read text on the screen. That just sucks. Make it bigger Apple, and maybe I'll think about it. Sadly, even the rumored iPhone 6 is said to only have a 4.7" diagonal display. That's so 2010.

2) No Text Reflow - Apple joins the idiots at Samsung on this one. Panning side-to-side to read sentences after zooming in on text is just plain stupid. Unless I fall and hit my head, and become stupid, I'm not signing up for this kind of reading abuse.

3) They Break - All you people who think iPhones are like "jeweler's quality", you can keep them. Drop it from 2' and it's toast. I feel sorry for all the people with a brand new iPhone 5S that they dropped the first month and destroyed the phone. I'd rather buy a rubber ball to bounce on the concrete versus a $750 glass and metal computer.

4) They Malfunction - iPhones do stupid things for no reason. I'm sitting here right now with a friend's iPhone 5S that vibrates, and makes annoying sounds. But the screen won't come on. Not even with a hard reset. It's a known issue. But like always, Apple won't admit this for at least 12 more months and after 1,507,327 more complaints.

5) Apple Thinks We Are Stupid - I don't want my smartphone force-fed into my mouth on a baby spoon like Gerber products. I want to be treated like I am halfway intelligent by my smartphone manufacturer. The arrogance at Apple is and has always been something that I completely don't care for.

That said, I must go to work. I'm reading some tech blog posts on my brand-new Apple iPad Mini with Retina display. And before you call me an anti-Apple troll, I never said I didn't like the iPad!

Carlton Flowers
Top 5 Techno Babbler

 

Is The LG G Flex Curvalicious Display The Wave Of The Future?

REVIEW: LG'S G FLEX SMARPTPHONE BREAKS THE MOLD WITH CONCAVE DISPLAY

I spent a fantastic 2 weeks with the LG G Flex smartphone, and it wasn't the device's technical specifications that had me sad about sending it back to AT&T. It was the display.

In the age of gigantic oversized monstrosities that we call "phablets", not a single manufacturer has come up with something this different. At first, I thought it was a gimmick. But after using it during my test period, it's anything but a gimmick.

The concave display on the LG G Flex smartphone isn't nearly as exaggerated as I thought it would be. We're only talking a depth of about a couple of millimeters in the center of the display at its full depth. But the difference it makes when compared to a flat smartphone is very noticeable.

For people like me who do a ton of reading on their smartphone, the concave display offers a major advantage: it's easier on the eyes. Why? I think this is due to the fact that the radius of your eyesight does not change length from reading the top to the bottom of the screen.

That might sound hokey to you. But is it? The new 4K televisions coming from LG and Samsung have a horizontally curved display to provide a more "immersive" effect, like the big screens at the best movie theaters. I noticed the same effect with the LG G Flex.

This smartphone sports a whopping 6" (diagonally measured) display. With a screen that size, maybe the slight concave design does actually offer something of a different experience to your eyes. And with my 40-something aging eyeballs, I could swear that it added to my ease of reading.

The LG G Flex display doesn't break any records with screen resolution. It's only a meager 720x1280 with 245 ppi. That might sound like techno gibberish to you, but of all the smartphones on the market, this is just average in resolution. But it doesn't need to be any higher than this.

Most of the smartphones on the market that boast better screen resolution don't really make that big of a difference to the average user anyway. But with bright, vivid colors and the huge size coupled with the slight concave design, it brings a brilliance that gives you the experience of watching a big flat screen television.

As far as the flexibility of the display, it doesn't mean that it is indestructible. If you drop the LG G Flex from a height of about 4', you will crack the display. Watching a drop test video did expose the fact that it is not made of an unbreakable material. But the flexibility does have its advantages.

I destroyed the display of my Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone 3 months ago. I had the phone in my back pocket, forgot it was there, and I sat on it. While I did not crack the display, my big butt managed to flex the LCD panel, and it was toast. You cannot so much as slightly flex the LCD panels on any smartphone without chancing completely destroying them. They just can't handle that.

But the LG G Flex does have the capability of bending without breaking. When you place the G Flex on a table face down, you can depress the center of the phone until it is flat on the surface and it will not damage the LCD. That means it will probably survive a chance sitting without spelling its demise. Because of that, I think this smartphone is more durable than anything on the market even though it is crackable.

I think we will see more concave design devices enter into the market in the coming months. With the wave of TVs arriving, and the LG G Flex, other manufacturers are sure to follow. Add to that the fact that Samsung has a completely flexible display in development, and I am sure we will see other non-flat designs coming our way.

Have you given the LG G Flex a test drive? Let me know what you think. I'm curious to know if other users find the display design to be easier on the eyes compared to the standard flat display.

I'll close this update by saying the LG G Flex gets a solid "two thumbs up" from the gadget king (that's me). This is a device I would love to add to my cadre of electronics! Big thanks to AT&T St. Louis for the test device!

Carlton Flowers
Smartphone Flexer

LG G Flex Smartphone via AT&T

Samsung Galaxy Text Reflow Fail - Will They Ever Get This Right?

TEXT REFLOW STILL A "NO-SHOW" ON GALAXY ANDROID DEVICES

If you found this page using a search engine, you share my frustration. It's about the lack of text reflow on Samsung's Galaxy smartphone devices running Anroid. I haven't ranted about this in a while, so it's high time I shoot the flame thrower at Samsung over this issue.

For those of you who have not been enlightened, "text reflow" is the ability for a mobile browser to reformat the text dynamically to fit the screen when you zoom in on an article of any type. The Galaxy series has never had this ability.

For people like me who consume tons of article content on their smartphone, this is both maddening and frustrating beyond imagination. I still cannot understand why such a useful function can't be incorporated into the best line of smartphones on the planet.

And before any Apple lovers sneer and gloat about an Android fan criticizing Samsung, your crappy devices don't do this either. This is something only HTC and a few other smartphone manufacturers have the common horse sense to value and include in their mobile browsers.

I have forty-something eyes that are plagued with horrible astigmatism and near-sightedness. Reading tiny text on a smartphone really sucks. It makes people like me feel as if companies like Samsung (and definitely Apple) just don't care to take the simple steps to encode this feature into browser codes.

Apparently, not enough people are complaining about this, because Samsung has no plans to incorporate this any time soon. I've waited for years to no avail. If I could take a big stick and whack some of the software development engineers upside the head at Samsung headquarters, I would do it if it meant they would address this and get it right.

HTC on the other hand apparently "gets it", and has included text reflow in all of their browser builds. There are some older devices made by other manufacturers who also had this feature, but it disappeared over time.

I first discovered text reflow when I owned an iPhone 4, and a friend of mine was showing off his flashy big screen Droid Razr Max device. He showed me an article on the BGR website, and while zooming in on the text, it cascaded automatically, increasing in font size, wrapping the sentences vertically so no side-to-side panning was necessary. I was instantly jealous.

Sure, some of the smarty pants geniuses out there claim that Samsung devices do have what they call 'text resizing", but it is hardly text reflow. You basically zoom in on tiny text, but then you have to double-tap the display to make the text fit the screen. But when you do this, it shrinks the font size down considerably, and limits you to a very small amount of resizing.

I want the font size to be as big as possible, and I want to scroll in one direction (vertically) to rapidly read articles. I can tear through text at around 800 to 1,000 words per minute with full comprehension using a device that properly reflows the text.

Another lame work-around that you can use on a Samsung smartphone is setting the text size in the settings window. You can make the text bigger, but you are still limited to the "double-tap-and-reshrink" action. Additionally, it screws up all the text on the screen, giving you major problems with overlapping text blocks. I call that 100% useless.

What people like me want is dynamic text reflow. That means watching the text reformat right in front of our eyeballs while zooming in, ending up with a super large font and sentences that don't fly off the right edge of the display.

The only half-@%$ option we now have is to use a third-party browser like Chrome, Opera, or Firefox. Chrome will not dynamically reflow the text, but it will allow you to increase the font size a lot more than the standard Android browser. Opera will reflow text, but it's not dynamic.

We hit another problem head-on when opting for the third-party browsers... none of the fancy gimmicks and functions that are built into the standard browser will work. I've grown to love the tilt-to-scroll, hands-free scrolling gestures, and other functions of the standard browser. But none of those work when using a third-party browser on a Samsung device.

While this isn't a deal breaker for me, it still makes me mad enough to grind my teeth when I see friends with an HTC One enjoying dynamic text reflow. If you haven't seen this, grab a friend that owns an HTC device and give it a try. You'll instantly see what I mean when you zoom in on text.

Samsung has done so many things right, and I absolutely love their devices. I'll probably stick with this brand for the forseeable future, because there are just so many great things I like about them that you just don't get with other brands.

But at the same time, I sure would be happy if Samsung would listen to customers and tell their developers to pull their heads out of their rear ends and get this encoded into the next software update. But I won't hold my breath.

If you share my frustration, post a comment in the Disqus comments section and tell me what you think!

Carlton Flowers
Arch Text Reflow Advocate Supreme

 

Samsung Galaxy S5 Rumor Watch Begins!

SAMSUNG SET TO RELEASE GALAXY S5 IN SPRING OF 2014

Well folks, it's time for me to start reporting on the rumors of "The Next Big Thing" by Samsung, the Galaxy S5 smartphone. It's gonna drop sometime in the spring of 2014, so let's get this rumor roundup started and see how accurate my guesswork pans out to be!

I'll run through all the worthwile details that the rumor mills are sharing, and give you my thoughts on whether or not I think they will have a chance of becomming reality on release day.

DISPLAY

It's gonna be bigger. That is a foregone conclusion. The tech blogs are saying it will sport a 5.2" diagonal, and that's pretty realistic. They might be able to get that slight increase just by reducing the bezel and stretching out to the limits of the case. 1080x1920 resolution with 423ppi is the call, and I think this is entirely reasonable aso. I don't think this will be the upcomming flexible OLED display, but it will be the best we've ever seen from Samsung. Count on that!

THE HOUSING

The Galaxy S5 will more than likely be made from the same lightweight plastic material that we've seen thus far. I don't believe Samsung is ready to dump what has worked for them thus far, just because there are heavier smartphones on the market that are made of glass, metal, or polycarbonate material. I hope this is the plan, because this makes the handset far more durable, and it will survive drops much better than its heavier competitors.

FINGERPRINT SCANNER

I'm calling this a foregone conclusion also. Why? Because it's already on the iPhone 5S. The market for fingerprint recognition is heating up, and "biometric security" is where everything is headed in tech. I think there will be a slight chance that Samsung will "one-up" Apple by burying their fingerprint detector under the screen, which would keep the surface perfectly flat.

PROCESSOR

Look for a Quad Core 32-bit Snapdragon 800 under the hood of the Galaxy S5, which will be supplied "in-house" from Samsung itself rather than outsourcing to other CPU suppliers. This is in line with the natural progression of smartphone processing power, and will bring it to the next level of multitasking capability and speed of operation. The processor will be supported by 3Gb of RAM, which again is what we would expect.

CAMERAS

The rumor mills mostly agree that we will see a 16MP rear camera and a 2MP front facing camera in the Galaxy S5. I would bet that the camera capability will be that of the current Galaxy Note III, but possibly with more advanced special effects and picture taking options. I'm hoping it will be a serious improvement over the camera in the Galaxy S4, though.

GIMMICKY STUFF

All of the crazy extra gimmicks and tricks that came with the Galaxy S4 will probably be carried over to the Galaxy S5, but rumor has it that they will be adding 3D gestures into the mix. I found most of the crazy extras that were packed into the TouchWiz 4.0 overlay to be quite useless, but a few were really useful. I'm hoping the new tricks will have real utility.

ADVANCED MODEL

Many blogs are reporting that Samsung will release a "standard" and an "advanced" model of the Galaxy S5. I'm not completely convinced of this yet. The reason being is that Samsung has stuck to the formula for providing a standard price mainline Galaxy smartphone while the Note series carries a higher price tag thanks to the extra digitizer layer for the S Pen. But anyhow, word has it that the standard model will only have 2Gb of RAM (I don't believe that) while the advanced model will get 3Gb plus a display with an even higher resolution and pixel density. I don't see the masses paying extra for that, but we'll see.

CONCLUSION

My prediction is that Samsung will keep the options tight. The only realistic scenario I see for a higher priced version would be for one that has more flash memory, similar to what we see with the iPhone line. The company has so many handsets out on the market, I just don't see why they would splinter their flagship smartphone into too many variations.

My biggest struggle will be staying content with my Galaxy S4 when this is released. My bonus prediction? I sell my S4 on eBay before the end of May and scrounge up the extra cash to buy a Galaxy S5 straight-out. Then I pout and whine when the Galaxy Note 4 is released shortly after I drop the load.

Stay tuned and we'll watch for more developments on what this thing will actually look like, along with a firm release date. What would YOU like to see in the Galaxy S5? Shout it out!

Carlton Flowers
Watchman of the Galaxy

 

Smartphone + Tablet = Asus Padfone X

AT&T TO ROLL OUT ASUS PADFONE X EXCLUSIVELY IN 2014

Forget the "phablet" craze! What do you get when you combine a smartphone and a tablet? Would this be a Tartphone? A Smablet? Perhaps a Smartablette? In due time, you'll be able to call it an Asus Padfone X.

Although there's no price or release date set as of yet, you'll definitely be seeing this new concept exclusively in the U.S. through AT&T sometime this year.

This takes the orgininal idea of the Motorola Atrix 4G and its expensive docking "laptop" a step further, only using the popular tablet form factor.

What you'll get is a 5" smartphone with a full HD 9" tablet when placed in the dock on its rear side.

Add in a light weight brushed metal frame, a soft touch back plate, Android 4.4 KitKat, and wondrous dual front facing stereo speakers, and you have one high quality gadget that will get some serious looks.

You'll even be able to dock the smartphone in real time and seamlessly transition to the larger display while running applications. And while docked, you'll be charging the smartphone from the humongously powerful battery within the tablet.

It goes without saying that you'll get blazing fast 4G LTE connectivity, and you'll also get full HD voice service that will be the wave of the future.

ASUS plans on rolling out all the gory details of this new device at the 2014 CES, and you can follow the announcements at http://press.asus.com/events.

Will this break new ground and bring the Tartphone/Smablette form factor into the forefront like the phablet craze that started with the original Dell Streak, that Samsung perfected with the Galaxy Note line? Only time will tell!

Keep your eyes peeled for details!

Carlton Flowers
Smablette Fronteersman

Curvy Concave LG G Flex Flexing On The AT&T Scene Soon

LG BRINGS INNOVATION WITH CURVED FLEXIBLE SMARTPHONE DISPLAY

My trusty AT&T informant has just told me that the LG G Flex will be coming to my favorite carrier network sometime in the first quarter of 2014.

LG has been on the rise for quite some time, tranforming from a brand maker of devices I wouldn't waste my money on to a top-level manufacturer of high quality cutting-edge technology (see my video post on the LG G2).

With the LG G Flex comes a lot of innovation, and it looks like this will be a strong newcomer on the smartphone scene as a result. The G Flex will have a curved form factor that we have not seen on the shelves as of yet. It looks like the G Flex will fit your face fabulously, without fail.

The big fat fantastic phablet front viewing face of the G Flex measures a whopping 6" diagonally, and is what LG calls a "true HD P-OLED Real RGB" display. The catch? It's supposed to reduce glare and provide more of an "immersive" experience.

Looking under the hood of this monster, it's power plant is packing a 2.26GHz quad core Snapdragon 800 processor, 2Gb RAM, 32Gb storage memory, a 13Mp camera, 2.1Mp front-facing cam, a 3,500mAh battery (wow) and Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2.

That's not bad at all, and pretty much keeps the LG G Flex right in the middle of cutting-edge smartphones currently being sold out on the market. We'll have to wait and see how the LG operating environment feels, but if it is anything like the LG G2, I'm sure it will be spectacular.

LG has come of age. I give them 100% respect as a quality hardware manufacturer, and hats-off to them for bringing the first true concave smartphone mainstream.

Carlton Flowers
Innovation Watchman 

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Lite - Could This Be A Hit?

SAMSUNG TO OFFER LESS EXPENSIVE VERSION OF NOTE 3

If this report turns out to be true, I could be looking at my next smartphone purchase. The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Lite could hit a sweet spot with what I want most in a smartphone.

I'm still thoroughly enjoying my Samsung Galaxy S4, don't get me wrong. And I've been eyeballing a Note 3 since its release. But I just can't justify spending the money on making that purchase outright.

But with the prospect of the Galaxy Note 3 Lite, I'm thinking seriously of taking that leap if the price is right. And I'm talking about buying off-contract.

The current Galaxy Note 3 can be found used on eBay for around $550 if you look hard. That's an excellent price, considering this phone is priced at $724.99 via AT&T brand new. But if the Galaxy Note 3 can be obtained brand new for what you would pay for a Note 3 that is used, this could be a winner.

As far as tech specs, the Galaxy Note 3 Lite is looking like it will fall right between the Galaxy Note 2 and the Note 3. Instead of a full HD display, we're talking 720p HD. And that's not bad. I'm sure they will pack at least as much RAM and memory storage as the Note 2, but it could be a bit higher.

I'm going to be watching closely for developments, and I'll report back as soon as I see something solid. This would be a great smartphone to run on the AT&T network, my carrier of choice!

Carlton Flowers
Gadget Watcher

Samsung To Bring Knockout-Punch Low-Cost Tablet In 2014

"GALAXY TAB 3 LITE" COMING IN JANUARY OF 2014?

Rumors are swirling about the release of a super low-cost tablet coming from Samsung that could possibly corner the market on base-level tablets. Insiders say that it will be called the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite.

At a price of $135 for the WiFi version, this could be the knockout punch that crowns Samsung the heavyweight champion in the tablet market.

Already known for making high quality products, this would make a purchasing decision fairly easy for someone who doesn't want to spend a pile on a tablet.

The form factor of this tablet will probably follow the 7" Galaxy Tab 3, but it will be a tad bit stripped down on features and/or processing power.

A 3G version will supposedly be rolled out 3 weeks after the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite WiFi model, along with an all-black version.

People are wondering what is up with the big dogs focusing on the low-end tablet market. Apparently, the low-end tablet niche is a growth market. There's not much further they can go with the expensive tablets, so this is apparently fertile ground.

I for one would be a prime target. I usually will focus on having whatever the top-flight smartphone is at the time, and I don't really need a super expensive tablet.

But if the price is right, I could see myself using a tablet for video content, reading, checking email, and running basic apps. I wouldn't need one for more than the most basic functions.

There are a lot of great deals coming our way in the tablet market. I have yet to spend my hard earned money on one of these devices. But which one will I finally bite on? Will it be the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite? Time will tell...

Carlton Flowers
Grand Gadget General Supreme

 

Black Friday Smartphone Report - Samsung Jackpot!

MY BLACK FRIDAY SMARTPHONE SNAGGING SUCCESS STORY

I spent Black Friday 2013 in Eastern Ohio, and was lucky enough to bag the Samsung smartphone special, getting two Galaxy S4 handsets for nothing down. The regular price is $199 with a 2-year contract agreement.

My college "kids" were both due for an upgrade, so this was perfect timing. We didn't hear about the deal until we arrived in Ohio the day before Thanksgiving. I had previously planned on plucking a couple of Galaxy S3 devices for their gadget pleasure, but that idea quickly got nixed when I heard about the deal.

We could have actually gotten the new Galaxy smartphones on Thursday, but we waited until Friday. We figured the masses would go after the first day, and the crowd would be much smaller on the second day. That wasn't the case...

We arrived at Best Buy at twelve o'clock. I made my way to the cell phone area, and there was quite a line. It wasn't like one of those obsene lines that go outside and around the building, but it was bad enough. Activating new smartphones takes some time, so even a short line can take an eternity.

The Best Buy rep told us that we were approximately 3 hours away from being served. We all looked at each other, wondering if this would be worth the trouble, but decided to go for it. My wife and daughter bailed to go shoe shopping while my son and I held our place in the line.

Some people were worried about the Galaxy S4's running out of stock by the time they arrived to the front. But we were told that 90% of the people in line were on Verizon, so we were safe with our need of AT&T handsets. That was a relief.

Originally, I had planned on upgrading my son, daughter, and wife's smartphones. The son and daughter had their Samsung Galaxy S2 handsets, and the wife had a Galaxy S2 Skyrocket with an LTE radio. Sadly, we were told while in line that there was a 2-phone limit per family on the zero-down upgrade deal. 

By the time we made it to the front of the line, we found out that my son and daughter's upgrade date was actually one day away. We were a day early! I didn't think once about checking my upgrade eligibility before getting in line. That wasn't very smart!

But thankfully, after speaking to the representatives over the phone at AT&T, we were relieved and truly thankful when they rolled back the upgrade date by one day. Our 3-hour wait was not made in vain.

It took an additional hour to get our phones activated, because I didn't have my bill current. After paying my monthly bill, we were able to move forward and set up the new phones. Since I had an existing plan that I wanted to keep, it took quite a bit of work for the Best Buy rep and the AT&T phone rep but they finally got everything switched over.

We were all exhausted after this long process, but in the end, I would do it all over again. The special is still on today, a day later, but there's no guarantee that it will go beyond today. 2 years ago, I was able to land the S2's and the Skyrocket on similar Black Friday deals. Both of those models returned to their full prices after Cyber Monday.

Last but not least, my wife's upgrade will be available in two days. I have a big decision to make. I'll either look for another Galaxy S4 deal, or pass down my own Galaxy S4 (after I fix it) and get a Galaxy Note 3 for myself. But we will save that for the next post!

Did you land a great deal on Black Friday that you would like to share? Post it in the Disqus comments section!

Carlton Flowers
Black Friday Gadget Sniper 

Nexus 5 Review Hands-On Coming Soon!

LG NEXUS 5 COMES ON TO THE ANDROID SCENE

The delicious LG Nexus 5 with KitKat (Anroid 4.4) is coming to stores and mailboxes! I haven't given this new smartphone much attention, but it's been stirring up quite a bit of buzz. Tomorrow, I hope to video an unboxing of fellow gadget geek Travis Fitzwater's new Nexus 5.

You'll only be able to get the Nexus 5 from AT&T (my choice), Sprint, and T-Mobile. Sorry Big Red customers, you get no Nexus love. Yet.

This is looking like a very decent smartphone, tech-wise. It's packing enough power to have motivated my pal Travis into jumping ship (or at least temporarily) from the world of Apple. It packs a 2.3GHz quad core processor made by Snapdragon, and a healthy 2Gb of RAM (this seems to be the new standard).

The display is nothing short of glorious. It looks like LG has hit a homer with the 5" 1080p screen. This seems to be the trend in smartphone screen size these days. And this big puppy is powered by a 2300mAh battery that has wireless charging capability. Very impressive.

The new Nexus 5 has a Gorilla Glass front screen and a palstic casing. You all know how big of a fan of plastic form factors I am when it comes to smartphones. But for those who are critical, I've read that the pastic on the Nexus 5 has a very silky "quality-like" feel, for whatever that's worth.

The Nexus 5 looks to be super thin, and stretches the edges of the display to the limits. It's right up to the edges of the bezel. It's slightly rounded on the sides, so that should give it a comfortable feel in the hands.

Camera-wise, you have a 1.3Mp front facing cam and an 8Mp rear main camera. That sounds like a step back, but it is supposed to have optical image stabilization (OIS) for reducing blur. That's a big plus in my opinion. I'd rather have less megapixels and blur control, because 13Mp will do you no good when you need to use a tripod to get a good picture.

Price-wise, this looks like one heck of a bargain at $349 for the 16Gb version if you're buying the device straight out. It's probably going to be $150 on contract. Add fifty bucks for the 32Gb version and it's still a great deal.

That's about all I want to cover for now. I'll wait to give more useful details when we rip into the box of Travis's new Nexus 5, and I'll have a YouTube video to share the exicitement with you! Stay tuned!

Carlton Flowers
The Gadget Master

Hands-On With The Motorola Moto X Smartphone

MOTOROLA MOTO X REVIEW - A DURABLE SMARTPHONE SOLUTION

I've spent several days with the Motorola Moto X smartphone from AT&T, and it's turning out to be a solid device that I would give a definite positive recommendation for those looking to buy a no-nonsense smartphone that will not only hold up to heavy use, but one that will get the job done.

You can check out the video below to get my initial reaction after my first day with this device. As promised, I'll give you a few more details about the specs and features of this phone that that I really like.

First off, I mistakenly mentioned in the video that the Moto X has 1Gb of RAM. It actually has 2Gb of RAM, which is great. This gives the device top-notch ability to crank through applications with speed, and puts it right in the middle of the best smartphones on the market today.

I call it a "no nonsense" smartphone because it's not loaded up with what they call "bloatware", or extra apps that you really don't need which push you to pay for services outside of the basic functions. It offers a much cleaner platform with much less clutter.

You can get this smartphone with 16Gb or 32Gb of internal storage memory, which is plenty enough to keep your pictures, videos, and your favorite applications. You don't have the ability to put in an extra SD card, but that's not a deal breaker.

The screen is absolutely brilliant. It's a 720 x 1280 pixel display with 16 million colors in a 4.7" diagonal size that fits great in your hands. You can operate the Moto X with one hand with no problem, and you can really enjoy rich video content. I didn't realize it even had a 4.7" size, because it fits as snugly in your hand as the former Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphone that has a 4.3" display.

Something else that I really like is the power cube. It has 2 USB 2.0 plugs, something I have never had with a smartphone power cord. That means you can power up another device while charging your phone, like a tablet or music device. That's very cool.

I love the fact that they put the power button and the volume buttons on the right side together. The buttons pertrude and are super easy to locate without looking at the device. I find it a lot easier to use the buttons on the same side rather than on the right and left, or power button on the top.

The USB power connector is also on the bottom of the device, which I love. There are a few smartphone devices on the market that have the power cord on the top, and on the side. I find that to be very annoying. I'd much rather power my smartphone from the bottom of the device.

Strangely, the Moto X reminds me of an HTC device. It is strikingly similar to HTC One with its shape, but slightly smaller even though the display is the exact same size. Plus you get a solid polycarbonate back that has a rubbery feel that is more grippable than the regular smooth shiny back plates. That's a big plus because I have a propensity to let smartphones slide out of my hand when using them.

You get Corning Gorilla Glass on the front, and Motorola claims it is "scratch proof". I'm not able to take a nail to this device to test that feature out, but I trust that they know what they're talking about. Add that to the solid body, and you get a super durable smartphone.

The Moto X packs a 4G LTE radio for all of its offerings, on AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. That means you'll be able to surf the web at top speed while in LTE coverage areas.

The camera is very decent at 10Mp, and takes great pictures. There are several devices on the market with 13Mp cameras, but the Moto X takes great shots and you won't notice a real difference. It has an LED flash, face recognition, and can take panoramic pics. The front camera is 2Mp in size, and that also puts it right in the middle of the top devices for those that love taking good quality selfies, and for video chatting.

You get a Li-Ion 2200 mAh battery that performs well and lasts long with regular use. Plus it doesn't seem to generate as much heat as some of the competitor's devices.

You also have a Dual-core 1.7 GHz Krait CPU, which probably lends to its cooler operation. You've got a lot of devices with quad core processors, and they are definitely faster. But even with a middle-of-the-road CPU, most people aren't going to notice much of a difference. It's a good tradeoff.

The shape of the phone's backing is similar to an HTC One with its rounded design. It won't sit flat on the table for those that like texting with their smarpthone sitting down, but you can solve that with a case. It does feel great in your hands though, thanks to that design.

Overall, the Moto X is a go for those that want a smartphone that will get the simple tasks done without piles of extra gimmicky functions. I think this would be a great device for someone who has never owned a smartphone, and for those that want a device that will stand up to heavy use and a beating.

Check out the video, and I'll be writing more about this device at the end of my test period! Comments or questions? Hit me up and let's talk about it! Special thanks to AT&T St. Louis for the review device!

Carlton Flowers

Chief Geek Tester

The CZ Rundown Of The New Motorola "Moto X"

MOTOROLA MOTO X SMARTPHONE - THE QUICK REPORT!

The Motorola Moto X is on the shelves and available for you to nab. Up to this point, I had not read much on this device. But I love the commercials, and the features they stress. So I took the time to look into this handset and give you a quck rundown.

I have not had the chance to test this device hands-on, but that will hopefully happen soon. This one is on my hit list of smartphones that I would love to have a test drive of.

First off, Motorola brags about how the Moto X is "assembled in the US". That doesn't mean much, being that the components are still made in China and Korea, but I guess that's a positive thing that they at least employ some US citizens for putting these puppies together. So that's halfaway commendable.

It looks like a solid design, but I need to hold one in my hands to confirm that. I do like what they are saying about how it is surviving drop tests better than any other device, plus how they have made a seemingly scratch-proof screen. That's all good in my book.

The body is polycarbonate material, like the Nokia Lumia 1020. Some say it even feels ceramic. But that definitely adds strength and durability. The more durable, the better. I think smartphones are way too expensive as it is, so any efforts that the manufacturers make to get these things designed better for standing up to abuse is awesome.

Google has set up voice activation for everything on this phone. Any task you need to perform can be initiated with voice. That would put it a step ahead of Samsung's S Voice, and possibly Apple's Siri. Can't wait to test the functionality of that.

The display looks pretty optimal. It's a 4.7" AMOLED RGB with 720HD & 316 pixels per square inch. It's smaller in size than the Galaxy S4, and closer in size to the HTC One. It might fit in your hand better, but I'm thinking it will still be too big to do much texting with one hand. But this display is supposedly pretty decent to look at.

The camera looks good on the Moto X. It's not the top of the pile by any means, but it will get the job done. It shoots in 1080p HD for video, and the rear camera is 10Mp in size. Plus you get the standard front-facing camera. Not bad at all.

There are a couple of really cool things that are unique with this device. First is the bonus storage space you get from Google Drive. They will dole out an extra 50Gb of space to your free 15Gb account if you buy this phone. That gives you a whopping 65Gb of free cloud storage to jam all of your photos and videos into for safe keeping.

The other cool extra is the ability to buy the Motorola "Skip Clip" for an extra $19.99. You clip this on your belt or shirt, and when you go to your phone, you can unlock it with one touch. If the clip isn't within close proximity, it will abide by the regular unlock settings.

If you get the Skip Clip, you also get three "Skip Dots" for free. They are the sticker versions of the clip that you can stick to your desk (or wherever else you'd like).

The battery on this device packs in a whopping 2200mAh, and reports are that it has a long life in-between charging. That's a plus.

All-in-all, I think this smartphone will be a hit. While it's not on the bleeding edge of technology, is one version of Android under the most current version (4.2 rather than 4.3), and has no SD card capability, I'm still gonna give this device a thumbs-up before I even get one in my hands to test.

I'll post up an audio to discuss this more, and keep your eyes peeled in the near future for some video and a full demo!

Carlton Flowers
Smartphone Geek Supreme

 

CZ Audio Podcast Is Back! Is iPhone 5C Influencing Samsung?

THE AUDIO PODCAST RETURNS! LATEST TALK ON IPHONE RELEASE & MORE

I have finally gotten around to getting back to my audio podcasting. I'd like to know from you, my great CZ Blog gang, whether or not you would like to see more audio podcasts like this posted to the site to fill up all the dead space between my fantastic blog posts.

I tend to write in streaks, and then disappear into the land of being "too busy". But as much of a talker that I am, it's very easy for me to post audio content to the site as opposed to writing the super fabulous techno nerd content that you've enjoyed for so long.

Post your thoughts in the comments section on what you think of more frequent audio podcasts. You can even suggest topics for discussion, ask questions, or even request a song selection for me to sing. I'll leave that up to you.

But in today's podcast, we'll talk about the release of the new iPhone 5S and 5C, and what surprising twist has popped up in terms of sales for Apple. Also, has the iPhone 5C influenced Samsung in some special way? Find out how in the podcast!

Looking forward to hearing back from you, and here's your audio podcast. Just click the podcast image or the link below and it will open up your mobile device media player:

 

Click Here To Listen Now!

Carlton Flowers
Techie Podcast Yapper