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34 | FireFlyz
TECHIE
There’s never a dull momentwhen it comes to technology. You can be certain
there’s always something newand exciting everyweek.
KhawChiaHui
checks
out five latest gizmosworth yourmoney and time.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom
Judging by the number of pictures one has
to take of their meals, pets and themselves
– Samsung recently released a version of
their popular Galaxy S4 smartphone with
a more-than-capable camera attached to
it. In fact, it looks like a point-and-shoot
camera with phone functions, if you ask
us.
No prizes here but you can guess where
the phone gets its name. The phone comes
equipped with a 16MP image sensor and
an optically-stabilised 10x zoom lens. Its
interface is straightforward, especially if
you have used a camera or a smartphone
before.
For Instagrammers and Facebookers,
photo quality is important. The Zoom’s
photos are comparable to a good midrange
camera. There are plenty of effects and
modes to choose from, such as Best face,
HDR, Macro, Panorama, Eraser, Sound
& Shot, Animated photo, and everyone’s
favourites – Baby and Food.
The camera also caters to professional
users. They can tweak aperture, shutter
speed and ISO setting when in Expert
mode. But, the settings aren’t as
encompassing as pros
might want it to be.
For example, there
are two aperture
options which
depend on zoom
levels – at 1x it’s
either F3.1 or F8.8
and at 10x zoom it’s
between F6.3 and
F17.8.
So, does it fare
better as a phone
or a camera, or
both? To be honest,
it is a bit thick and
unwieldy for a phone,
not to mention battery
goes pretty quick. We don’t see it as an
everyday workhorse-type device but more
as a novelty item you want to bring to
outings.
HTC One Mini
With the warm reception of HTC’s flagship
– HTC One – the Taiwanese company
thought it was a great idea to introduce
a junior version of sorts. Its aluminium
unibody and high resolution screen shows
that junior too has some tricks up its
sleeve.
Going for a cheaper price point than
the HTC One, performance doesn’t suffer
as much as we thought it would. It comes
with a dual-core 1.4GHz Krait 300 CPU and
1GB RAM, which gives this Android device
decent response time.
What we like best about the Mini,
is that it doesn’t skimp on connectivity
options. It has HSPA speeds with LTE. LTE
is being experimented by telcos lately and
once it is ready, you can expect stable and
faster speeds. With LTE, it also means, you
can use your phone in LTE-ready countries
that don’t have 3G support.
While the Mini is trying to fill the gap
of compact high-end smartphones, its
camera and 16GB storage fall a little off the
mark. Its 4MP camera doesn’t do photos
justice. Most photos can turn out grainy
with lack of detail. If you disable the image
stabilisation, you will need a very steady
hand to get a half-decent shot indeed.
Ooh! Shiny
New Gadgets