Laptops with the Longest Battery Life

No matter how stacked its specs are, a laptop is useless if it can’t hold a charge. Fortunately, there are plenty of notebooks that go the distance. Using our Laptop Mag Battery Test (continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi), we’ve identified the 10 longest-lasting notebooks on the market. We’re talking anywhere from 9 hours to more than 20 hours of endurance, which should more than suffice for that cross-country fight, long day of meetings or multiple, back-to-back classes.

Lenovo's X200 ThinkPad series is synonymous with portable productivity, and the X240 lets you get more done than ever without rushing to the nearest outlet. This lightweight laptop's built-in battery provides a good 7 hours and 40 minutes of juice, which stretches to a whopping 20 hours and 28 minutes when you upgrade from its 3-cell to its 6-cell battery. This endurance is the most we've ever gotten from a laptop without a sheet battery attached to the bottom, and makes the X240 the perfect productivity companion.

Mike Andronico has been reporting on the latest tech trends for Laptop since July 2013. With a B.A. in Journalism from Purchase College, Mike's love for "Street Fighter," comic books, and cool gadgets has led to contributions at GameNGuide, Examiner, Joonbug, and 2D-X.

View the original article here

Laptops with the Longest Battery Life

No matter how stacked its specs are, a laptop is useless if it can’t hold a charge. Fortunately, there are plenty of notebooks that go the distance. Using our Laptop Mag Battery Test (continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi), we’ve identified the 10 longest-lasting notebooks on the market. We’re talking anywhere from 9 hours to more than 20 hours of endurance, which should more than suffice for that cross-country fight, long day of meetings or multiple, back-to-back classes.

Lenovo's X200 ThinkPad series is synonymous with portable productivity, and the X240 lets you get more done than ever without rushing to the nearest outlet. This lightweight laptop's built-in battery provides a good 7 hours and 40 minutes of juice, which stretches to a whopping 20 hours and 28 minutes when you upgrade from its 3-cell to its 6-cell battery. This endurance is the most we've ever gotten from a laptop without a sheet battery attached to the bottom, and makes the X240 the perfect productivity companion.

Mike Andronico has been reporting on the latest tech trends for Laptop since July 2013. With a B.A. in Journalism from Purchase College, Mike's love for "Street Fighter," comic books, and cool gadgets has led to contributions at GameNGuide, Examiner, Joonbug, and 2D-X.

View the original article here

Smartphones with the Longest Battery Life

With their zippy quad-core processors and big screens, smartphones have never been more powerful–or more power hungry. Yes, specs and apps matter, but what good are they if you’re hunting for an outlet by lunchtime? If you want a smartphone that endures, check out the handsets that made our list.

These devices lasted at least 8 hours on the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which involves continuous web surfing over 4G LTE. We set each phone’s display to 150 nits to normalize for brightness and make sure each handset is receiving at least 3 bars of service. See for yourself which smartphones truly go the distance.

It's clear that LG built its latest flagship phone to last. If its blazing fast Snapdragon 800 processor wasn't enough, the G2's 3,000 mAh battery lasted a record-setting 13 hours and 44 minutes on the LAPTOP Battery Test. The AT&T version lasted 10 hours and 42 minutes, while the Verizon model lasted 9:14. All of these runtimes are great. While the back-mounted power and volume keys aren't for everyone, overall the G2 is a formidable Android phone that's built to go the distance.

More: LG G2 (AT&T) Review

Responsible for the editorial vision for Laptopmag.com, Mark Spoonauer has been Editor in Chief of LAPTOP since 2003 and has covered technology for nearly 15 years. Mark speaks at key tech industry events and makes regular media appearances on CNBC, Fox and CNN. Mark was previously reviews editor at Mobile Computing, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc.

View the original article here

LG G3: Top 5 Features

The LG G3 raises the bar in two key ways. This is the first smartphone to pack a quad HD screen, promising image quality that’s “better than real.” The handset also incorporates a laser autofocus camera, which should help you lock on your subject a lot faster than competing devices. Other highlights include proactive recommendations (such as alerting you to take an umbrella) and a powerful 1-watt speaker. But that’s just scratching the surface of this sexy  G3 can do. Here’s our list of top features.

Thanks to a new Laser Auto Focus feature, the LG G3's 13-MP OIS+ camera lets you capture shots at a fast clip without blur. The phone shoots a laser beam to measure the distance between the subject and the camera. Plus, the G3 lets you shoot just by touching the area of the screen where you want to focus. On the gimmicky side, the G3 enables users to capture selfies just by clenching your fist in front of the 2.1-MP front camera.

More: Smartphone Interactive Buying Guide

Responsible for the editorial vision for Laptopmag.com, Mark Spoonauer has been Editor in Chief of LAPTOP since 2003 and has covered technology for nearly 15 years. Mark speaks at key tech industry events and makes regular media appearances on CNBC, Fox and CNN. Mark was previously reviews editor at Mobile Computing, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc.

View the original article here

12 Most Infuriating Tech Behaviors

Technology has given us more freedom than we’ve ever had before. We can book flights, pay our bills, share vacation photos and order food in just a few taps on our smartphones or tablets. But now that practically everyone owns a mobile device of some kind, we’re using them much more often — and picking up some nasty habits in the process. Raise your hand if you’ve seen these awful behaviors — then use it to smack the offender the next time around. 

Photos by Jeremy Lips.

Too often, people with earbuds stuck in their ears attempt to hold a conversation, whether they're talking to friends, checking out at the supermarket or chatting with colleagues in the office. You need to stop it. Not taking the headphones off signals to those around you that they're not important enough to deserve your attention.

More: 25 Worst Gadget Flops of All Time

Photos by Jeremy Lips.

Responsible for the editorial vision for Laptopmag.com, Mark Spoonauer has been Editor in Chief of LAPTOP since 2003 and has covered technology for nearly 15 years. Mark speaks at key tech industry events and makes regular media appearances on CNBC, Fox and CNN. Mark was previously reviews editor at Mobile Computing, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc.

View the original article here

How to Download YouTube Videos on Your Android Phone

You’re watching an awesome Web series or boogying down to a music video on YouTube when you realize that you’re about to go somewhere with little or no connectivity. Fortunately, with a few simple steps you can save any video on YouTube to your Android phone for offline viewing. You can even convert music videos to MP3 files you can put on your playlist. Here’s how to download YouTube videos on your Android phone.

Note: Downloading videos may violate YouTube’s terms of service. 

1. Navigate to the settings menu on your Android phone. 

2. Select Security.

3. Toggle “Unknown sources” to on if it is not already checked. This setting will make sure you can install apps that don’t come from Google Play.

MORE: How to Download YouTube Videos on Your PC

4. Download YouTube Downloader from Dentex’s blog on your Android phone.

5. Tap the download notification for YouTube Downloader in your notification drawer.

6. Tap Install. The program will take a few seconds to install.

You can browse videos and download them either through the YouTube app or by using the YouTube Downloader’s search feature. We prefer using YouTube’s own app. 

1. Find the video you want in the YouTube app.

2. Tap the share button which appears when you tap on the video player.

3. Select YouTube Downloader from the share menu.

MORE: Smartphone Interactive Buying Guide

4. Select the video / audio format you wish to download. We recommend MP4 files in 1080 or 720p for videos and MP3 files if you only want the audio.

5. Tap Download here to confirm.

6. Tap Download to grab a plug-in file if necessary. This will only happen the first time you download a file in a given format.

1. Open YouTube Downloader.

2. Enter a term in the search box and tap the search button. A list of videos appears.

MORE: 5 Ways to Speed Up Your Android Phone in Under 5 Minutes

3. Tap the video you want to save. A list of options appears.

4. Select the video / audio format you wish to download. We recommend MP4 files in 1080 or 720p for videos and MP3 files if you only want the audio.

Whichever way you find your video, YouTube Downloader will then take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to download and store it on your phone. You can play the file directly from YouTube Downloader or find it in the Download folder on your phone.

The official Geeks Geek, as his weekly column is titled, Avram Piltch has guided the editorial and production of Laptopmag.com since 2007. With his technical knowledge and passion for testing, Avram programmed several of LAPTOP's real-world benchmarks, including the LAPTOP Battery Test. He holds a master’s degree in English from NYU.

View the original article here

Apple Promises ‘iMessage Purgatory’ Bug Fix

Did you recently switch from an iOS phone to another mobile phone or smartphone? Texts sent to you might be getting trapped in Apple’s servers, due to an error in Apple’s iMessage service that the company just acknowledged today.

On iOS devices, users can use a service called iMessage to send and receive text messages via Wi-Fi and Apple’s servers, instead of SMS or MMS messages via phone networks. Many people prefer iMessage to SMS messaging because it does not rack up texting charges, and allows you to continue the same conversation over all your Apple devices.  But if you try to leave iOS for a different phone, the convenience of iMessage can quickly turn to frustration. 

MORE: 10 Tips and Tricks Every iPhone Owner Should Know

The problem is, if you change from an iOS device to another phone without explicitly disabling iMessage first, messages sent to you will get caught in Apple’s cloud servers, and remain there without ever reaching your new phone. This happens because Apple’s servers still think your phone number belongs to an iPhone, but can’t find an iPhone to which to deliver the message. Thus, the messages just sit in “iMessage Purgatory” without ever being delivered.

This flaw has existed in iPhones since 2011, with the launch of iMessage as a part of iOS 5. To fix the issue, users had to call Apple’s AppleCare tech support, who would manually edit the user’s AppleID. Even then, some users reported difficulty in getting the issue fixed. Shortly after the release of iOS 7 last fall, Apple released a patch for an iMessage issue where iOS users’ outbound messages weren’t sending. This patch didn’t seem to address the “iMessage Purgatory” issue, however.

What’s more, “iMessage Purgatory” became entirely inescapable recently, when a flaw on Apple’s company servers made it impossible for even AppleCare to fix the issue. Today, Apple has finally made its first public comments on the issue. 

“We recently fixed a server-side iMessage bug which was causing an issue for some users, and we have an additional bug fix in a future software update. For users still experiencing an issue, please contact AppleCare,” Apple said in a statement to tech news site Re:Code. 

This fix hasn’t come quickly enough for some: last Thursday (May 15) California resident Adrienne Moore filed a class action lawsuit against Apple. The complaint alleges that Apple “interfered” with users’ cellular service to the point that people who switch from Apple devices to other phones or tablets are “penalized and unable to obtain the full benefits of their wireless-services contracts.”

Moore is seeking $5 million in damages, though legal experts are saying the amount could increase if others join her lawsuit and it is successful. 

View the original article here

Google May Launch Advanced Project Tango Tablets at I/O

Google’s recently revealed Project Tango smartphone is designed to let you see the world like never before, and now the tech is coming to tablets. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Google is prepping 4,000 prototype Project Tango tablets, complete with 3D imaging capabilities, in time for next month’s Google I/O conference in San Francisco. 

Google’s advanced 7-inch tablet will sport dual rear cameras and infrared sensors, which will work in conjunction with the Project Tango software to create detailed 3D images of your surrounding environment. The concept was originally demoed on a 5-inch smartphone with a 4-MP shooter, a motion tracking camera and an integrated depth sensor. We’re not sure how the tablet version will differ spec-wise, but the larger display would provide a better view of any 3D-mapped images created by the user. 

MORE: Top 10 Tablets Available Now

 According to Google’s original announcement video, some of the use cases for Tango include mapping out your living room for interactive games or furniture shopping, as well as being able to find the location of a particular item the second you step foot in a store. The California search giant has already begun distributing dev kits for developers who want to create apps for Project Tango.

Google has yet to make an official announcement regarding a Project Tango tablet, nor has it mentioned when we can expect the smartphone or tablet versions to be commercially available. We expect to learn more at Google’s I/O developer conference, which kicks off June 25 in San Francisco. 

Sources: The Wall Street Journal/Google

Mike Andronico has been reporting on the latest tech trends for Laptop since July 2013. With a B.A. in Journalism from Purchase College, Mike's love for "Street Fighter," comic books, and cool gadgets has led to contributions at GameNGuide, Examiner, Joonbug, and 2D-X.

View the original article here

Apple Promises ‘iMessage Purgatory’ Bug Fix

Did you recently switch from an iOS phone to another mobile phone or smartphone? Texts sent to you might be getting trapped in Apple’s servers, due to an error in Apple’s iMessage service that the company just acknowledged today.

On iOS devices, users can use a service called iMessage to send and receive text messages via Wi-Fi and Apple’s servers, instead of SMS or MMS messages via phone networks. Many people prefer iMessage to SMS messaging because it does not rack up texting charges, and allows you to continue the same conversation over all your Apple devices.  But if you try to leave iOS for a different phone, the convenience of iMessage can quickly turn to frustration. 

MORE: 10 Tips and Tricks Every iPhone Owner Should Know

The problem is, if you change from an iOS device to another phone without explicitly disabling iMessage first, messages sent to you will get caught in Apple’s cloud servers, and remain there without ever reaching your new phone. This happens because Apple’s servers still think your phone number belongs to an iPhone, but can’t find an iPhone to which to deliver the message. Thus, the messages just sit in “iMessage Purgatory” without ever being delivered.

This flaw has existed in iPhones since 2011, with the launch of iMessage as a part of iOS 5. To fix the issue, users had to call Apple’s AppleCare tech support, who would manually edit the user’s AppleID. Even then, some users reported difficulty in getting the issue fixed. Shortly after the release of iOS 7 last fall, Apple released a patch for an iMessage issue where iOS users’ outbound messages weren’t sending. This patch didn’t seem to address the “iMessage Purgatory” issue, however.

What’s more, “iMessage Purgatory” became entirely inescapable recently, when a flaw on Apple’s company servers made it impossible for even AppleCare to fix the issue. Today, Apple has finally made its first public comments on the issue. 

“We recently fixed a server-side iMessage bug which was causing an issue for some users, and we have an additional bug fix in a future software update. For users still experiencing an issue, please contact AppleCare,” Apple said in a statement to tech news site Re:Code. 

This fix hasn’t come quickly enough for some: last Thursday (May 15) California resident Adrienne Moore filed a class action lawsuit against Apple. The complaint alleges that Apple “interfered” with users’ cellular service to the point that people who switch from Apple devices to other phones or tablets are “penalized and unable to obtain the full benefits of their wireless-services contracts.”

Moore is seeking $5 million in damages, though legal experts are saying the amount could increase if others join her lawsuit and it is successful. 

View the original article here

Gigabyte Launches Optiboost Configurable Gaming Notebooks

Mobile gamers looking for a high-performance laptop have a few new options, thanks to Gigabyte. The Taiwanese hardware company has announced a partnership with iBuyPower  to sell configure-to-order gaming notebooks through the latter company’s website. Dubbed Optiboost, the new customization program will allow users to choose their storage drives, RAM and other components when they purchase one of Gigabyte’s Ultraforce line of high-performance gaming laptops. 

MORE: Best Gaming Laptops 2014

The Optiboost program will initially include three notebooks: the 14-inch P34Gv2 and the 15-inch P35Gv2 and the P35Wv2, with more to come. Starting at $1,399, the 14-inch P34Gv2 comes standard with a 1920 x 1080 display, a 2.4-GHz Intel Core i7-4710Q CPU, 8GB of RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX860M graphics and a 500GB hard drive.

At present, shoppers can only configure the P34Gv2 with up to 16GB of RAM and dual hard drives or SSDs. There’s no current option for choosing a different CPU, display, graphics card or wireless radio.

The 15-inch P35Gv2 starts at $1,439 with the same Intel Core i7-4710Q, 8GB of RAM and GeForce GTX860M graphics but with a 1TB, 7,200 rpm hard drive. You can configure it with a faster GTX870M GPU, your choice of storage drives and an optional optical drive.

Also 15-inches, the P35Wv2 starts at $1,599 and has all the same base specs and config options except for the GPU. Instead, the more powerful GTX870M comes standard. Both 15-inch laptops are available for pre-order while the P34Gv2 is shipping now.

While configure-to-order may be a new concept for Gigabyte, competitors have been letting users choose their components for years. Alienware, for example, lets you select the screen resolution, video card, storage drive and memory for its 14, 17 and 18-inch systems. Nevertheless, we look forward to giving one of these gaming rigs a spin.

View the original article here

HP Launches $99 Android Tablet

Easily among the cheapest Android tablets on the market, HP has launches the HP 7 Plus. This 7-inch slate costs just $99, and for your money you get a 1-GHz quad-core Cortex A7 CPU and 1GB of RAM. But you should expect some trade-offs at this price.

For starters, the display sports a resolution of just 1024 x 600 pixels. The Kindle Fire HD features a sharper 1280 x 800 screen, but it costs $139. For storage space, you’ll get 8GB of RAM and a built-in microSD card that can boost memory by 32GB. The slate measures 7.6 x 4.8 x 0.32 inches and weighs a light 10.4 ounces.

MORE: Best Tablets Under $200

Rounding out the specs are 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, a 2-MP rear camera and a 0.3-MP front shooter. The 2800 mAh battery should last about 5.5 hours on a charge. That’s below the average slate we’ve tested, but respectable given the price tag.

By comparison, the Android-powered ASUS MeMO Pad HD 7, which goes for $129, features a quad-core CPU, 1280 x 800 display, 16GB of memory and 9 hours and 40 minutes of battery life.

The 7 Plus will run Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean out of the box, and will come preloaded with a variety of Google apps such as Gmail, Chrome browser, Google Maps, YouTube and the Google Play app store. You’ll also get a few HP apps, including HP ePrint, HP Connected Photo powered by Snapfish and HP File Manager.

We’ll reserve judgement on this budget system until we get our hands on a review unit, but it could prove to be a decent slate for the tablet newbie or kiddie set. 

A lover of lists and deadlines, Anna Attkisson heads up features and special projects for Laptopmag.com, in addition to covering social networking and accessories. She joined the LAPTOP staff in 2007, after working at Time Inc. Content Solutions where she created custom publications for companies from American Express to National Parks Foundation.

View the original article here

Osmo Turns Your iPad Into ‘Actual Reality’ Gaming Device

 

Playing with a tablet doesn’t have to be just using a touchscreen. A new accessory for the iPad will encourage kids to play in real life again. Osmo uses your iPad’s camera to turn the surface in front of your tablet into a play area that feeds information back to your device in a sort of reverse augmented reality. It will retail for $99, but the company is offering a 50 percent discount for four weeks for its crowdfunding backers. 

Although Osmo’s target audience is elementary schoolchildren, us adults had plenty of fun playing with it during our hands-on preview. A simple stand for the iPad with a red camera attachment makes Osmo’s setup is pretty basic. The cap reflects images into the iPad’s camera, so Osmo’s apps can scan anything on the rectangular plane in front of your tablet. It then sends this information back to the apps, letting you interact with items on the screen by adjusting physical objects on the detected surface.

MORE: 15 Best Apps That Aren’t on Android

No other setup is required — you won’t have to turn on Bluetooth or Wifi to connect — the Osmo apps just read information from the camera. Three apps are currently available for the Osmo system — Newton, Tangram and Words. Each $99 package comes with the basic iPad stand with red cap, as well as a set of blocks and cardboard letters for Tangram and Words. 

We thoroughly enjoyed drawing on a piece of paper or using our hands in Newton to guide virtual beads dropping from the top of the iPad’s screen into designated areas. In Tangram, we arranged geometric puzzle pieces to form animal shapes as prompted by the app. Words was particularly fun; the Hangman style game challenges you to guess what’s in a picture by throwing out letters in front of the tablet.

We liked the musical feedback in each app that lets kids know they’re doing well. Osmo is also great for group play, since more than one player can take part. As we battled each other in Words, we were impressed by how the camera not only picked up shapes and letters but colors as well, assigning points to each team based on whether a red or blue cardboard letter was tossed into the pile. 

All in, Osmo looks to be a promising gaming accessory that could entertain your family for hours on end.

Cherlynn joined the Laptopmag team in June 2013 and has since been writing about all things tech and digital with a focus on mobile and Internet software development. She also edits and reports occasionally on video. She graduated with a M.S. in Journalism (Broadcast) from Columbia University in May 2013 and has been designing personal websites since 2001.

View the original article here

Samsung Reportedly Launching Virtual Reality Headset

It looks like Samsung’s Galaxy might soon be going virtual. According to a new report, the company is set to announce a virtual reality headset sometime this year. The launch would place the consumer electronics giant in direct competition with Sony’s Project Morpheus and Facebook’s Oculus Rift — not that Samsung isn’t used to competition.

MORE: 12 Surprising Things Your Android Phone Can Do

Samsung’s VR headset, as reported by Engadget, will be powered by next-generation phones and tablets. The early version of the device can apparently work with the Galaxy S5, but the site says that even beefier hardware may be required to power the final shipping product.

The headset will apparently feature an OLED display in order to compete with Oculus Rift. Samsung’s likely goal: to make games and videos much more immersive, as well as add to its array of accessories that now includes smartwatches like the Gear 2.

It’s unclear how the headset will connect to mobile devices or how it wlll handle tracking head movements. Another unknown is what kinds of games the company plans to roll out with the headset. Most of the VR gaming demos on the market rely on PC titles like “Eve Valkerie” and “War Thunder.” 

If Samsung is successful, the VR headset could help the company court more developers and make its ecosystem more sticky like Apple’s.

View the original article here

Snapdragon 805 Benchmarked: Results vs Galaxy S5

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801 processor is just making its way into smartphones, but it’s already old news compared to the company’s upcoming Snapdragon 805 chip. Coming to devices later this year, the next-gen CPU offers a 40 percent graphics boost over the 801 and is the first chip that can natively display 4K content. We got some hands-on time with Qualcomm’s latest silicon beast and were impressed by what it has to offer.

To test its latest chip, Qualcomm let us benchmark one of its developer tablets running a 2.65-GHz version of the Snapdragon 805 with 3GB of RAM. Because the slate isn’t a finalized commercial product, its scores were slightly lower than those we’ve seen on the Snapdragon 801-powered Samsung Galaxy S5 and HTC One M8. Qualcomm, however, assured us that when the 805 makes its way into smartphones and tablets, it would easily outscore devices powered by its predecessors.

GeekBench 3 Multi-core (higher is better)3DMark Ice Storm Ultimate (higher is better)Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 Developer Tablet

On the Quadrant benchmark, which tests a device’s overall system performance, the developer tablet registered a score of 24,324. That’s lower than the 24,645 we saw on the HTC One M8, but higher than the Galaxy S5’s score of 22,692. The smartphone category average clocked in at 11,792.

MORE: Top 10 Smartphones

On the Geekbench 3 benchmark, which tests a device’s multicore processor performance, the Snapdragon 805-powered developer tablet scored a 2,779. That’s just below the Galaxy S5’s score of 2,897, but higher than the HTC One M8’s 2,480 and the smartphone category average of 1,837.

Benchmarks, however, don’t tell the whole story of what a processor can do. So to gauge the Snapdragon 805 developer tablet’s real-world performance we ran our Vidtrim transcode test, which involves timing how long it takes a device to transcode a 204MB, 1080p video file to 480p. The Snapdragon 805-powered tablet completed the test in just 4 minutes and 25 seconds, beating the HTC One M8’s time of 4:47 and the Galaxy S5’s 4:42. Each of the devices blew away the smartphone category average of 7:51.

Beyond a promised increase in overall system performance, the Snapdragon 805 also brings Qualcomm’s new Adreno 420 GPU to the table. The company says the chip will be a boon for mobile games as it is expected to offer performance increases as high as 40 percent over the Snapdragon 801’s Adreno 330 GPU, while consuming 20 percent less power.

Additionally, the Adreno 420 offers DirectX 11 and OpenGL ES 3.1 support, as well as dynamic hardware tessellation and geometry shaders. All that basically translates to gamers getting console quality graphics on their mobile devices. We saw a demo of what the chip’s hardware tessellation is capable of and were blown away. 

This player is used on Facebook and anytime it's embedded outside of our sites.

In the demonstration we were shown an animated hornet with the tessellation settings turned down. As such, the insect and its surroundings looked flat and lacked detail. When the tessellation was turned up, though, the Adreno 420 was able to add more polygons to the hornet and the rocky ground around making both come to life.

A second demo showing a close-up of a swimmer’s face bathed in the afternoon sun was meant to give us an idea of the kind of dynamic lighting and shadow effects the Adreno 420 can provide. When we moved the swimmer’s face the sunlight caused shadows from her nose to fall on her cheek. Similarly, when we moved the artificial sun, we were able to see how the Adreno 420 can refract light.

As with the system benchmarks we ran, however, the Snapdragon 805 and Adreno 420 offered lower test scores than we had hoped, topping out at 19,801 on the 3DMark Ice Storm Extreme test. That’s better than the Galaxy S5’s 18,547, but lower than the HTC One M8’s 20,965.

According to Qualcomm, as more graphics drivers are made available for the Snapdragon 805 and Adreno 420 GPU, benchmark scores overall gaming performance will improve dramatically.

This player is used on Facebook and anytime it's embedded outside of our sites.

Of course, the big news about the Snapdragon 805 is its ability to display native 4K content. And though there aren’t many apps or movies available in 4K, they are coming. According to Qualcomm representatives, the company is actively working with developers to help them prepare 4K apps. 

In one demo, Qualcomm helped illustrate how much better a 4K tablet display looks next to a 1080p panel. To do this, the company took an image with text multiple photos and pieces of text and displayed it on both a 1080p tablet and a 4K-enabled tablet. When viewed on the 1080p screen, many of the words appeared blurry to the point of illegibility. By contrast, text looked razor sharp on the 4K panel.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 805 processor is shaping up to be quite an impressive piece of silicon. Although its benchmark numbers were a bit low during our demonstration, the company assures us that the chip will eventually outclass its predecessor. What’s more, the prospect of console quality graphics and native 4K content have us salivating for this CPU to hit the street. Thankfully, we won’t have to wait much longer, as we should start seeing devices with the 805 chip later this year.

A newspaper man at heart, Dan Howley wrote for Greater Media Newspapers before joining Laptopmag.com. He also served as a news editor with ALM Media’s Law Technology News, and he holds a B.A. in English from The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.

View the original article here

Samsung

Video Offers First Look at LG’s Sexy New Smartphone

After months of leaked images, LG has provided the first official look at its sexy new flagship, the LG G3. A quick teaser video from LG showcases the phone’s design for the first time, with an official launch event slated for May 27 in London. 

LG seems serious about taking on heavyweights like the Galaxy S5 and HTC One M8 in the style department department. The G3 teased in the video sports a sleek aluminum-brushed finish, which is a step up in style from the plain white and black iterations of the G2. As you can see in the clip, the G3 packs a slightly more attractive version of the G2?s signature (and somewhat polarizing) Rear Key, which places power and volume control on the back of the device. 

MORE: 10 Best Android Smartphones

LG has yet to provide official specs for the G3, but rumors are pointing to either a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 or an octa-core LG Odin for the processor. Previous reports have suggested a whopping 2560 x 1440 display, which would make the G3 the highest-resolution smartphone around. 

Only time will tell if the LG G3 and its quirky design will sway shoppers from the Galaxy S5 or HTC One M8, but we’ll have a better idea of that once the launch event kicks off on May 27 at  1 p.m. Eastern time,  10 a.m. Pacific. 

 Source: CNet/LG

Mike Andronico has been reporting on the latest tech trends for Laptop since July 2013. With a B.A. in Journalism from Purchase College, Mike's love for "Street Fighter," comic books, and cool gadgets has led to contributions at GameNGuide, Examiner, Joonbug, and 2D-X.

View the original article here