The LG Spectrum is the Verizon version of the LG Nitro HD on AT&T, a phone we liked quite well other than its weak battery life. The spectrum gets a casing makeover with gloss plastics and a CDMA radio for voice and 3G, but otherwise the internals are mostly the same. But the Spectrum lags where the Nitro moved along decently, and that really gets in the way of enjoying what should be a fast, high end Android smartphone. We’ve also found it a bit less stable, and in the week we’ve had it, it’s spontaneously rebooted a few times (not a common occurrence with other recent Android phones). We get the feeling there’s a lot of promise here, but LG needs to work out the software kinks to bring better performance and stability.

The smartphone runs on a 1.5GHz dual core Snapdragon CPU like the HTC Rezound and several recent AT&T LTE phones. Qualcomm’s radio and CPU chipset integration are excellent when it comes to LTE performance. We see none of the waffling between 3G and 4G in weaker LTE coverage areas that plague us with the RAZR line and Galaxy Nexus. Now, if you’re in a good LTE coverage area, or conversely have none at all and disable LTE on the phone, this won’t matter to you. But if you are in marginal coverage areas, the Spectrum and Rezound are your best bet.

The display is lovely. It’s an IPS panel with good brightness and much more natural and accurate colors than Super AMOLED. You won’t see Super AMOLED’s hyper-vivid hues and amazing blacks, but will see plenty of sharp detail, crisp colors and good contrast. The 1280 x 720 panel makes for a relatively tall but narrow phone, and that means it’s easier to hold in a narrow palm, but it will likely stick out the top of all but deep pockets. There are times when the display doesn’t seem to respond to a tap, but it’s hard to judge if it’s a display issue or lag (I suspect it’s lag).

The phone has a high gloss plastic back with a fine silvery checkerboard pattern that looks lovely until you handle it: it gets noxiously gummy. The 5 ounce phone feels weighty and looks like a decent quality piece, and we like the contrasting home button that’s easy to see in the dark. The phone has 3 rather than the usual 4 capacitive buttons because LG combines the menu and search buttons into one on the left, and that’s fine by us. There’s an option to turn off capacitive button backlighting when the display is turned on, and we turned that option off immediately because it’s difficult to see the menu/search and back buttons with no backlighting.

The micro USB port is located up top under a door: I find the location inconvenient when trying to both charge and talk at the same time, and the door is fiddly. The headphone jack is up top, as is the power button. The volume controls are on the right and the microSD card slot is under the back cover. Verizon includes a 16 gig card since the phone has only 4 gigs of internal storage with approximately 1.45 gigs available. The rear door is easy to remove and snap on, and the 1830 mAh battery, LTE SIM card slot and microSD card slot are under the door. There’s no word whether the Spectrum has NFC.

LG Spectrum Video Review

Calling and Data

Voice quality is good but not among the best Verizon Wireless phones (we give the Droid RAZR, RAZR MAXX and Bionic a nod for their excellent voice). Volume through the earpiece is good and voice on both ends is clearly intelligible but not crisp or very clear. The speakerphone isn’t terribly loud for calls or multimedia. It doesn’t help that the speaker is located on the back towards the bottom where one tends to grip the phone.

The LG Spectrum has 3G EV-DO and 4G LTE on Verizon’s network. Data speeds are very good and the Spectrum matched Verizon’s other top LTE phones. As noted, the phone really manages to hold onto a weak LTE signal and on my desk where the RAZR MAXX spends most of its time on 3G the Spectrum stays on LTE.

Performance and Horsepower

In terms of performance, this Android OS 2.3.5 Gingerbread phone gets middle marks for a dual core on synthetic benchmarks, and it falls behind better performing Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket running on the same CPU. We spoke of UI lag, and we wonder how much of this has to do with LG’s custom UI. The LG Nitro runs nearly the same UI and feels snappier however. If you haven’t seen LG’s UI, do watch our video review to see it in action. It reminds us a bit of older versions of TouchWiz, and LG adds some nice touches like sectional dividers for the app drawer (you can create groups for different kinds of apps) and a lovely media quick-access widget.

Multimedia

LG makes good cameras, and the Spectrum takes pleasing shots with good colors and reasonable exposure though it’s prone to some whiteout in high contrast outdoor settings. Indoors it does surprisingly well with dim settings even with the flash off. The camera can shoot 1080p video at 30 fps, and again, other than a bit of whiteout for sunny day settings, it did a good job.

The phone easily handles video playback, be it streaming YouTube and Netflix or locally stored MPEG4 content up to 1080p resolution (even high profile plays well). The speaker won’t win any awards but the phone has good sound via Bluetooth and wired stereo headphones. The high resolution IPS display really shines for video playback and we found watching movies thoroughly enjoyable. The Spectrum has WiFi for streaming without eating into your data bucket, and it supports WiFi Direct. Bluetooth stereo speakers and headphones work via the Bluetooth 3.0 radio.

Battery Life

Verizon LTE phones aren’t Energizer bunnies when running on LTE. The two cellular radios for CDMA and LTE take their toll, and today’s fast CPUs and large displays don’t help. That said, the 1830 mAh Lithium Ion battery fared decently compared to other Verizon LTE phones, and we managed 6.5 hours of talk time (LG claims up to 8.3 hours of use time). There’s an optional 3040 mAh battery available and a wireless charging back that works with the wireless charging mat sold in Verizon Wireless stores.

Conclusion

There’s a lot to like about the LG Spectrum. It has LTE with strong 4G reception, a really lovely 4.5″ IPS 720p display and a fast Qualcomm S3 dual core CPU. It’s promised an upgrade to Android 4.0 and handles video playback like a champ. Not bad for $199 with contract. But we’re put off by the occasional stutters and lags, and the phone isn’t as stable as we’d like. A firmware update might remedy these issues, but we’re not sure if the phone will get much tweaking before OS 4.0 ICS comes out by mid-year.

Specs:

Display: 4.5″ capacitive multi-touch display. Resolution: 1280 x720, supports both portrait and landscape modes via accelerometer. Has an ambient light sensor.

Battery: 1830 mAh Lithium Ion rechargeable. Battery is user replaceable. Optional 3040 mAh extended battery available, optional wireless charging back available.

Performance: 1.5GHz dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 CPU. 1 gig RAM, 4 gigs storage with ~1.45 gigs available.

Size: 5.33 x 2.71 x 0.41 inches. Weight: 4.99 ounces.

Phone: CDMA dual band digital with 3G EV-DO Rev. A and 4G LTE. Has Mobile Hotspot feature.

Camera: 1.3MP front video chat camera and rear 8MP autofocus camera with LED flash. Can shoot 1080p video.

Audio: Built in speaker, mic and 3.5mm standard stereo headphone jack.

Networking: Integrated WiFi 802.11b/g/n (supports WiFi Direct) and Bluetooth 3.0.

Software: Android OS 2.3.5 Gingerbread. Upgradable to OS 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. LG UI and widgets included along with Adobe Flash and the usual selection of Google Android apps like email, gmail, YouTube, Gallery, Mobile Hotspot, Maps and Navigation. Verizon software: VZ Navigator, V CAST Media Manager, V CAST Tones, Verizon Video, Backup Assistant and account manager. Third party software: Polaris Office (view, edit and create MS Office documents), TuneWiki, BitBop, Blockbuster, Amazon Kindle, Rhapsody, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit and Let’s Golf 2. LG software: SmartShare DLNA, SmartMovie HD, RichNote and widgets.

Expansion: 1 SDHC microSD card slot, 16 gig card included.

Source

The Galaxy Note is Samsung’s real flagship device for the close of 2011. It makes the Samsung Galaxy Nexus look a little middle of the road. While the Nexus has solid higher end specs, the Note goes for broke with the best of everything Samsung has to offer: a 1280 x 800 pixel Super AMOLED HD display, the fastest version yet of their very fast Exynos dual core CPU and a dual digitizer that supports both capacitive multi-touch and a Wacom pen. But it’s big; the phone has a whopping 5.3″ display, and though Samsung does their usual magic to make it supremely thin and light, it’s still big. I’ve owned a Dell Streak, a phablet (phone/tablet) with a 5″ display, so I can tolerate large smartphones. The Note is more portable but it still makes the Galaxy Nexus with its 4.65″ display seem compact. The Galaxy Nexus is at the large end of the mainstream spectrum given this year’s big phone theme. The Galaxy Note is for those with big pockets, literally and figuratively. While it actually does fit in my pockets, the price tag is steep because it’s currently available only as an unlocked GSM phone from importers. You can use any GSM carrier’s SIM card, but you’ll pay the price: around $650 to $750.

That’s equal to or $100 more expensive than the Verizon version of the Galaxy Nexus without contract ($650) and about the same as the import Galaxy Nexus. Mind you, the phone will work on T-Mobile and AT&T, and you’ll even get 3G/4G HSPA+ 21Mbps on AT&T, but it won’t work on Verizon and Sprint who use CDMA rather than GSM. I’m using it on AT&T with my standard postpaid 4G data plan and it works great. If you’re on T-Mobile US, you’ll only get 2G for data as well as voice service over GSM.

Like all Samsung smartphones, the Note is very thin and light, and it’s made of plastic. It’s attractive though not high end chic looking, and it fits in the hand and pocket better than you might think. Two disclaimers: I have very large hands for a woman and I don’t wear tight jeans with tiny pockets often. If your hands are small or your attire more trendy than mine, you might find the Galaxy Note is just too big. If you think the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is too large, forget about the Note. This is a big phone, folks.

Our phone is a Euro import, and Samsung describes it as blue, and that means the back cover is a very, very dark blue that generally looks black. The button configuration is pure Samsung: the power button is on the upper right just across from the volume rocker, so it’s easy to accidentally hit both. The headphone jack is up top, and the pen silo and micro USB port are on the bottom. The speaker fires from the lower rear section, and the microSD card slot is under the battery cover.

AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note is Coming

Given the cellular band match-up, it’s no surprise that AT&T announced at the CES trade show on January 9, 2012 that they’ll be selling the Note with LTE 4G. We suspect the AT&T version will drop the insanely fast 1.4GHz Exynos CPU for the LTE-friendly 1.5GHz Qualcomm S3 dual core CPU as they did with the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket on AT&T. Our international unlocked Note is quad band GSM with EDGE, and it works on AT&T’s 3G and 4G HSPA+ 21Mb network (both 850 and 1900MHz bands), so it works fine for calls and texts as well as fast data. Why the switch to Qualcomm? Likely because it interfaces better with LTE radios.

Samsung Galaxy Note Video Review

Here’s our 28 minute in-depth Samsung Galaxy Nexus Video Review:

Display

The phone’s insanely high resolution 1280 x 800 pixel Super AMOLED HD display is easy on the eyes. Android does a good job of scaling UI elements so you won’t need a magnifying glass to see things. After all, 1280 x 800 is the standard resolution for 10″ Android tablets and select higher end 7″ tablets. All those pixels make for supremely sharp text and plenty of detail when viewing high res photos and video. The display uses a Pentile matrix, but we didn’t notice telltale color fringing or jaggy text thanks to the very high resolution. Super AMOLED displays tend to have a blue color cast, but Samsung clearly went with the best display panel they could design, and calibrated colors for nearly neutral tones. Our phone showed no banding when viewing blacks.

The Galaxy Note has a Wacom dual digitizer, and that means it has both capacitive multi-touch and an included S Pen that works with the active digitizer. It’s much more precise and fluid for drawing vs. a capacitive stylus and it supports 256 levels of pressure sensitivity, which artists will love. Samsung ships the phone with several pen-aware apps and there are more in Samsung’s download portal on the phone. If an app isn’t pen-savvy, you’re out of luck. Adobe Reader doesn’t support use of the pen, for example, but there are third party PDF apps that do. Given the Note’s size and pen, it actually feels like a real note pad replacement: nice. The pen stows in a silo located on the bottom edge of the phone. If you’re looking for a pocket digital sketchbook or note pad, the Galaxy Note does the job perfectly.

Performance and Horsepower

It’s no secret that Samsung’s dual core Exynos CPU is one of the fastest mobile CPUs available. The Galaxy Note currently has the highest clocked Exynos, and it runs at 1.4GHz (same as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 Plus tablet). The Note benchmarks higher than all other Android smartphones and tablets we’ve tested so far (even faster than the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime overall). Here are the numbers:

Quadrant 4088
AnTuTu 6468
Linpack multi-thread: 105
Sunspider 1920

How about perceived performance? The phone feels very fast, though we noticed occasional micro-lag when navigating the home screen and launcher. The Note does run the latest version of Samsung’s TouchWiz UI, which may weigh down the phone a bit, but we actually like what Samsung has done with TouchWiz, so we won’t complain. The Galaxy Note has no trouble playing HD video including 720p to the internal panel and 1080p to the internal panel and an HD TV via MHL adapter (not included but you can pick one up at carrier stores for $20).

The smartphone runs Android OS 2.3 Gingerbread with a promised upgrade to Android OS 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It has a gig of RAM and 16 gigs of internal storage plus an available microSD card slot under the battery cover.

How fast will the AT&T version be with the likely 1.5GHz dual core Qualcomm CPU? Given the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket’s performance running the Qualcomm, it should be quite good though not as fast as Exynos. Will you notice the speed difference? Probably not so much, but we’ll reserve final judgment when we receive the AT&T version for testing.

Phone and Data

The Samsung Galaxy Note is sold in the US as an unlocked import quad band GSM world phone. It has 3G and 4G HSPA+ 21Mbps on the 850/900/1900/2100MHz bands, and that means you’ll get 3G/4G HSPA+ overseas and on AT&T but not T-Mobile in the US. Our download speeds on AT&T averaged 6Mbps down and 1.3Mbps up according to the Speedtest.net app, which is average for HSPA+ AT&T phones in our area. That’s plenty fast for responsive web page downloads and app downloads from the Android Market. I don’t miss LTE when using the phone itself, but when using the mobile hotspot feature I would prefer LTE (and thus waiting for the AT&T version with LTE).

As a voice phone, the Galaxy Note is wonderful. It has very clear incoming and outgoing voice and better than average volume. Samsung’s Galaxy S II phones have had very good voice overall, and the Note takes it up a notch better vs. the Galaxy S II and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket on AT&T. The phone likewise sounded good with a variety of Bluetooth headsets like the Jawbone 2 and Motorola H730 as well as our BMW built-in Bluetooth.

Camera and Multimedia

The Samsung Note uses the same 8 megapixel rear main camera module as the Galaxy S II phones, and it takes colorful and sharp photos as well as pleasing though not groundbreaking 1080p video. The camera is prone to overexposure in high contrast brightly lit outdoor settings, just as with the S II, but otherwise we have no complaints. Indoor photos show relatively little noise, and the flash doesn’t overexpose subjects at close range. 1080p video looks smooth at 30fps, and has a good amount of detail and color saturation, though there’s some motion blockiness typical of camera phones. The 2 megapixel front camera worked well with Google Talk video chat and Skype in our tests. We looked clear with good illumination over HSPA+ and WiFi.

For such a large phone, you’d think there would be room for some serious stereo speakers. Instead the Note has a decent mono speaker that’s decently loud but not louder than the pack of 4.5″ and above smartphones. Sound is reasonably full but you’ll want to plug in a set of headphones for best audio quality, or stream to Bluetooth speakers. The phone has a 3.5mm jack and an FM radio with RDS.

WiFi and Connections

The Samsung has WiFi 802.11b/g/n with average reception for a smartphone and it has Bluetooth 3.0 + HS. You get Kies Air syncing over WiFi and WiFi Direct as well as DLNA for streaming media. HDMI out comes via an optional MHL adapter that plugs into the phone’s micro USB port. The phone can mount as a standard mass storage device (thankfully for Mac users), and it can do Samsung’s Kies syncing over USB and WiFi to Windows machines plus MTP. Samsung says the micro USB port supports USB Host (with a USB host cable, aka USB OTG cable). We checked with our trusty USB host cable, but couldn’t get this feature to work with flash drives, hard drives, keyboards or mice.

The phone has a GPS with A-GPS and Glonass (the Russian GPS satellite system), and it ships with the usual Google Maps, Navigation and Places. The Note quickly found our location indoors and proved a trustworthy companion for in-car navigation. The Galaxy Note has a digital compass.

Battery Life

You’re thinking: big screen, really fast CPU and HSPA+, battery life must stink. But battery life is actually competitive with other HSPA+ smartphones currently on the market. It helps that the phone has a large 2500 mAh Lithium Ion battery, and that Samsung’s CPU is very good at power savings.

Samsung does go a little overboard with the display power management, and there’s an option that’s turned on by default that adapts backlight to colors currently displayed (all Galaxy S II smartphones have this feature). That means light and white backgrounds trigger power management to further dim the display and web pages can look a bit too dim. Likewise, the ambient light sets the display too dim for my tastes, rendering it useless indoors. It does do a good job of increasing brightness to combat outdoor light, however.

Conclusion

The Samsung Galaxy Note is the best Android smartphone of 2011. It has a superb display running at an extremely high resolution, a very useful Wacom digitizer with pen for pressure sensitive writing and drawing and a very fast dual core CPU. It’s thin, attractive and though very large, can still fit in a pocket as well as medium to large hands.

Voice quality for calls is excellent whether using the handset or a Bluetooth headset, HSPA+ speeds are very good and the GPS is solid. There’s really nothing we don’t like about the phone, but it is too expensive and too large for some. AT&T’s version with LTE should be a phone to watch, and it will be much more affordable with a contract option.

Source: MobileTechReview.com

High end or low end, or somewhere in between; Windows Phones all share the same basic specs thanks to Microsoft’s strict guidelines. That means this $49 phone runs on the same CPU and its display has the same resolution as the higher end Lumia 800 and AT&T Windows Phones like the HTC Titan. You get a second generation single core 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU with Adreno 205 graphics, a 3.7″ 800 x 480 pixel capacitive touch screen, 3G and 4G HSPA+ 14.4Mbps (currently the fastest data connection Windows Phone supports), a 5 megapixel rear camera and the usual WiFi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and a GPS. Not bad for the price!

Thanks to the 1.4GHz CPU, the Lumia 710 hums right along. Windows Phone is optimized for the Qualcomm Snapdragon single core CPU, and speed is always impressive. It’s as fast as the iPhone 4S and you don’t see the occasional lag that pesters Android phones. XBOX Live games play fluently on the phone, and even demanding 3D titles play well. Speaking of XBOX, Windows Phone integrates with XBOX Live and there’s a healthy selection of quality games ranging in price from .99 to $6.99, with most high quality titles selling for $2.99 to $4.99.

Typical of lower priced Windows Phones, you get less storage: 8 gigs vs. 16 gigs on higher end phones. The Lumia 710 has about 5.33 gigs free for your use, and that might be a bit tight for those of you who embrace the Zune ecosystem for syncing music and video. Zune is as ever one of the slickest and most enjoyable mobile music players, and it makes the iPhone’s music player look a bit old school. It has album art, and side-scrolling to see related music, artist bios and more.

If you have a Zune pass ($10/month), you’ve got an all you can eat subscription music service and you can stream music to the phone without side-loading using the Zune app in Windows or the Mac Windows Phone Connector (with iTunes sync) in Mac OS X. If you wish to purchase music and videos from the Zune Marketplace, you’ll pay using the Microsoft Points system, just as you do with XBOX downloadable content. The Lumia 710 has good sound quality from the speaker, and very good sound quality through headphones and Bluetooth stereo headphones. The rear-firing speaker is surprisingly loud for a small phone.

Again, thanks to Microsoft’s broad ecosystem, you get very good MS Exchange support and a mobile MS Office suite for viewing and editing MS Office files. In addition it handles Gmail and Google Contacts and Calendar sync along with POP3 and IMAP email. The phone can pull documents and photos from the SkyDrive cloud too. The Lumia 710 has 4G HSPA+ on T-Mobile, and speeds in our solid coverage area were very good, with documents transferring quickly and music streaming without a hiccup. T-Mobile TV streamed perfectly over HSPA+, as did Netflix. When streaming lots of video or music, you might want to use WiFi when available to avoid hitting your data cap. T-Mobile doesn’t cut off customers who exceed their data plan allowance, but they will slow down your connection to EDGE speeds for the remainder of your monthly period.

Nokia Lumia 710 Video Review

The Nokia Lumia 710 looks distinctly Nokia. It has that bar design with curved corners, complex curves and a general Euro chic style that sets it apart from other Windows Phones. It’s available in white and black, and though it doesn’t look as wildly unique as the unibody polycarbonate Nokia Lumia 800, it’s not a cheap looking phone, nor dull. It’s not terribly thin though; at 0.49″, it’s semi-chunky by today’s super-thin phone standards. The thickness does afford a removable back cover with access to the 1300 mAh Lithium Ion battery inside, which the slimmer Lumia 800 lacks. The back is made of a rubbery soft touch material and it seems fairly rugged and shock absorbing too. The front and top and bottom edges are glossy plastic, and the 3 standard Windows Phone buttons are the mechanical clicky type rather than capacitive. They score for tactile feedback, but are annoyingly stiff to press.

The “ClearBlack” TFT LCD is very sharp and has good color in terms of saturation and accuracy. Blacks are indeed deep, viewing angles are decent but not 178 degree IPS wide, and brightness is decent though it does fade in bright outdoor light. The display is clad in Corning Gorilla Glass for added durability and scratch resistance.

As you’d expect from Nokia, call quality is excellent for both incoming and outgoing voice. Reception is solid and we didn’t have a signal call drop. The phone uses a micro SIM just like the Lumia 800 and iPhone 4/4S. The smartphone is quad band GSM and quad band HSPA+. It has both T-Mobile and AT&T HSPA+ bands, likely due to the planned (but failed) merger with AT&T. The Lumia 710 works with Bluetooth headsets, car kits and Bluetooth stereo gear. Audio quality over Bluetooth is particularly good both for music and voice. Alas, the phone has neither a mobile hotspot feature nor WiFi calling.

The 5 megapixel rear camera takes very good photos that are sharp, colorful and well-exposed. Nokia knows how to make a good camera. The phone can shoot 720p video that likewise looks good, but there’s no 1080p video recording here due to the single core CPU. The camera has an LED flash and Windows Phone offers a healthy selection of settings and the ability to upload photos and videos to Sky Drive and social networking sites.

Conclusion

There’s a lot to like in Nokia’s first US Windows Phone. The bargain price belies a solid set of features; quick performance and an elegant though not thin design. Call quality is excellent, the camera takes good photos and the phone is fast. Gaming is fluid and fun, the Zune music experience is as ever enjoyable and streaming video plays well over T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network. If you’re looking for an easy to pocket smartphone that’s wallet-friendly, the Nokia Lumia 710 is worth a look. It beats the HTC Radar 4G Windows Phone on T-Mobile for both price and specs, and it’s a lovely introduction to Windows Phone. We do wish the front buttons weren’t so maddeningly difficult to press and that the Lumia 710 had the mobile hotspot feature, but those are our only two complaints.

Price: $49.99 with a 2 year contract

Source

At first sight, the HTC Rhyme isn’t really that far off from the HTC Desire S in terms of design and form factor (I suggest reading the Desire S review here). The Rhyme is less curvy along the corners, is slimmer, has more internal storage, a faster Bluetooth and higher-capacity battery.

The Rhyme also comes in a variety of fancy colors like Clearwater Blue, Hourglass, and Plum. The one that’s been released and available in the Philippines now is the blue one.

The Rhyme has a solid unibody design, pretty lean and flat with very simple or plain design accent. There’s barely any physical buttons here except for the power button at the top and the volume control on the right side. It actually reminds me of the Wildfire S, only taller and slimmer.

At the back is where the 5MP camera is placed along with the LED flash and the phone speaker. Just below that is three, small metallic contact points for charging when rested on the dock.

At the bottom corner is where you slide out the cover to insert the SIM card and the microSD card.

Up at the front is the 3.69-inch screen which is the same as the one on the Desire S with the Super LCD. The 480×800 pixel resolution is just right for the size and you can bet on the display quality of HTC’s handsets to be very bright, clean and crisp.

At the bottom corner is the touch panel for the usual Android menu — Back, Settings, Home, Search.

The HTC Rhyme comes with a number of accessories out of the box — a large charging dock, Beats-looking earphones, white leather puch and a Light-up Charm Indicator (which wasn’t included in our review unit here).

The white Beats Tour-looking earphones compliments the light blue color of the HTC Rhyme (though many people I talked to was looking forward to the plum-colored variant) and though I am not much of an earphones guy, it adds the cool factor and premium packaging of the HTC Rhyme. (Update: Not really the Beats Tour earphones I originally thought it was but a striking look-alike. The Rhyme is not powered by Beats Audio.)

HTC Rhyme S510b specs:

• 3.7″ SLCD display @ 480×800 pixels
• 1GHz Scorpion processor
• Adreno 205 GPU
• Qualcomm MSM8255 chipset
• 4GB internal storage
• 768MB RAM
• up to 32GB via microSD card (8GB included)
• HSDPA 14.4Mbps, HSUPA 5.76Mbps
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, WiFi hotspot
• Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP, EDR
• 5MP autofocus camera w/ LED flash
• 720p video recording
• VGA front-facing camera
• FM Radio tuner
• GPS w/ aGPS
• Li-Ion 1600mAh
• HTC Sense UI 3.5
• Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread

The HTC Sense UI on the Rhyme provided improved transition effects and navigation. Additional widgets that made the Rhyme more useful include the ShortCuts & Clock shown below. It’s a full-screen widget that provides accessible shortcuts to Mail, Messages, Music, Camera and FB Chat right on the screen.

And while the old UI has the App Drawer, Phone and Personalize screen buttons floating at the bottom corner, the one on Sense 3.5 only has the App Drawer on the left-most corner and the Phone icon on the right-most corner.

You still get a maximum of 7 home screens which you can customize with shortcuts, widgets, folders and apps. The HTC Rhyme and Sensation XL also comes with a native book reader called My Shelf (probably comes with HTC Sense 3.5 since both handsets have it).

The Charm accessory can be set to light up when messages and phone calls are received. This allows you to be alerted of incoming messages even when your phone is tucked inside your purse or bag. Too bad we didn’t have the item in the box so I wasn’t able test it out.

As for performance, the single-core processor of the HTC Rhyme does the job fairly good and though it doesn’t have the bragging rights of a dual-core chip like the Sensation, the handset handles most of the common tasks efficiently. Of course, you don’t get the benefit of a dual-core chip performance here — like encoding 1080p videos — so you’re left with a decent 720p video recording.

HTC Rhyme beside the iPhone 4S

Our quadrant benchmark gave us a score of 1492 which is within the range of the chip category but a little better than previous models of the same configuration.

What surprised me the most is the 5MP camera of the handset. I was expecting the same performance as the Desire S or the Sensation but turns it it’s even better than the one on the HTC Sensation XL.

The camera works like a charm for most of the photos I took outdoors and even indoors. Really good white balance and exposure, fast shutter speed, deep color saturation and and over-all clean images.

See some of the sample photos taken using the HTC Rhyme here:

Close up shots are refined and not blurry, even on indoor shots. I noticed though that there’s some sort of sharpening filter done on the raw images (same as the Sensation XL) to correct for blurriness (probably the work of image stabilization).

You can click on the thumbnails to view the original raw files which is around 1MB in size. HTC also included some really nice photo effects like Vignette and Depth of Field (see first photo above for sample). The camera also has options for backlight HDR and panorama scenes among a slew of other scene modes.

The video recording is only up to 720p HD but is actually as good as the photos at 24fps. However, on fast-moving captures, I already noticed a lot of dropped frames. Despite that, theover-all quality is still really good. See sample below.

Battery life is another thing though and has been a Waterloo for almost all HTC handsets (especially the Android ones). The HTC Rhyme already has a higher-capacity battery compared to the Desire S but it offered very little relief on day to day use.

You’d last a day and a half (probably two if you just do SMS and calls) with normal internet and multimedia use but can hardly last an entire day when you’re a heavy user. But as I always say, that’s the reality with smartphones nowadays.

Is it wort the upgrade? Depends. If you own the Desire S, there’s very little reason to upgrade because the hardware is almost the same. If you’re coming from the Wildfire S, then the HTC Rhyme is the perfect upgrade path when you’re not too sold on the Sensation line-up.

The HTC Rhyme has a suggested retail price for about $450 and comes with all the bells and whistles inside the box — the HTC Charm, the Dock, the Beats Tour -looking earphones and a leather pouch.

Source

Samsung’s first US Windows Phone, the Samsung Focus on AT&T was a fast phone even with the first gen 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU. The Focus S is faster, and more importantly, it has improved battery life because the second gen Snapdragon CPU is much more efficient. How nice to not have to worry whether your phone will make it through the day with moderate to heavy use. It will. The Focus S has a 1650 mAh Lithium Ion battery and a power frugal 4.3″ Super AMOLED Plus display. As you’d expect from a Super AMOLED Plus display, blacks are inky and colors are hyper-saturated, and there’s a slight blue color tint that’s noticeable on white backgrounds.

Design and Ergonomics

The good news and bad news is that the Focus S is a near dead ringer for the Samsung Galaxy S II. That’s good because the phone is absurdly light and very thin, and the GS II has been extremely well received. The bad news is it feels too light (if that’s possible) and it’s typical Samsung plastics with not a hint of metal or high quality finishes. At 3.9 ounces, the Focus S is lighter than the smaller and cheaper Samsung Focus Flash (3.7″ display), and the battery door is paper-thin. The phone is exquisitely thin at 0.33″, but that thinness combined with the gloss sides makes it easy to drop. I rarely drop phones but have found myself one juggle away from disaster several times with the Focus S. Get a case with a grippy texture.

As per usual with Samsung, the power button is on the upper right side and the volume controls are almost directly across on the left hand side. Happily, Samsung dropped the volume controls just a bit lower than the power button so one doesn’t accidentally press the opposing button when gripping the phone to turn it on or change volume. The 3.5mm stereo jack is up top and the micro USB port for charging and syncing with the Zune desktop client is at the bottom. The phone has dual mics for noise cancelling, with one on the top edge and one on the bottom edge. The speaker fires out the rear and has moderate volume and fullness, but it can’t compete with the amazingly loud and full HTC Titan speaker that can literally fill a room.

Samsung Focus S Video Review

Calling and Data

The smartphone has HSPA+, which AT&T calls 4G, and download speeds were typical of the lower range of HSPA+. Our phone averaged 3-4.7 Mbps for downloads and 1 Mbps up using the phone itself and when using a laptop and the mobile hotspot feature, which is the same as the Titan but slower than the 3.5-6 Mbps down and 1.2 Mbps up we get with AT&T’s HSPA+ Android phones. Why? No idea.

The Samsung Focus S has the mobile hotspot feature, something we sorely missed on first gen Windows Phone 7 handsets. Call quality is excellent and reception is average. Call recipients said we sounded landline clear, and incoming voice had average volume with excellent clarity. The phone worked well with our Jawbone headset and our car’s built-in Bluetooth.

Windows Phone, Zune Multimedia, IE 9 and XBOX Gaming

Standard for Windows Phone, you get the very capable and attractive Zune music and video player that syncs to your desktop (Zune client in Windows, Mac Windows Phone Connector that syncs to iTunes on Macs running OS X). There’s 16 gigs of internal storage with 14 gigs available for your use, and there’s no expansion slot. After the ruckus over the microSD card slot on the original Focus, I doubt we’ll see any Windows Phones with card slots until the OS supports it in a more user-friendly fashion.

The Metro UI is all about elegance and simplicity. In fact, it’s downright calming–think of it as the Chamomile tea of operating systems. If iOS is too closed for your tastes and Android too unfocused, Windows Phone falls somewhere in between, and is closer to iOS in terms of ease of use and presenting a structured experience.

That’s not to say the OS is boring. It’s not, and you’ve got XBOX Live games with a healthy selection of high quality games to get your blood pumping. XBOX gaming and Zune music are the centerpieces of Windows Phone. Funny for a company that brought us the all business Windows Mobile phones of old. But there’s meat for business types here with solid MS Exchange support and Microsoft’s mobile version of their Office suite (view/edit/create docs).

IE 9 (mobile) does a good job of rendering websites, though we still don’t rank it as highly as the standard Android and iPhone web browsers. It gets 95% of CSS and formatting right, but once in a while we’ll notice a font that’s not sized properly (MS errs on the side of making fonts too large so things stay readable), or an image that extends beyond its intended column. Though IE 9 doesn’t break any Sunspider JavaScript tests (the Samsung Focus S scored 6250, while the iPhone 4S scored twice as fast), in real world use, the Focus S downloaded and rendered websites as quickly as our iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy S II. That’s a marked improvement over the original Samsung Focus and the HTC HD7S on AT&T. Sorry, there’s no Adobe Flash Player on board, but now that Adobe has announced the untimely demise of mobile Flash Player development in favor of HTML5 tools, that will fade in importance.

Windows phone manufacturers can create their own Hub or tile and a selection in the Marketplace for free downloadable apps. HTC and Samsung have the largest apps selections, and both offer note apps, photo editors and more. Samsung includes their Now app, which is a combo of Accuweather, Yahoo news, stocks and top tweets by country. They have a downloadable photo editor, RSS reader (a Google Reader client), MiniDiary (similar to the Android app, a cute diary app for photos, notes and voice recordings), a social network photo sharing app and more.

Audio

Given Windows Phone’s music focus, we’re surprised that the speaker wasn’t a bit louder and more audacious. The HTC Titan’s speaker is simply amazing in comparison, while the Samsung’s is solid but not impressive. Sound quality through the 3.5mm stereo jack is good, though we did notice some audio popping when using amplified connections like car and home stereos. We didn’t hear any popping using headphones or wired headsets. The phone works with Bluetooth stereo headphones and speakers, and audio quality through Bluetooth to speakers was very good.

Camera

Microsoft greatly improved their camera software in Mango, and there are lots of shutterbug options like autofocus mode (normal, macro), white balance, saturation, effects and EV. Happily, Samsung improved the imaging hardware too, and the Focus S’ camera is much better than that of the original Samsung Focus. It’s the same hardware as the Galaxy S II and it features an 8 megapixel camera with an illuminated backlit sensor and a fast lens. The S II does beat the Focus S for maximum recording resolution (1080p vs. 720p) because 1080p video recording requires a dual core CPU.

Photos are very colorful and sharp, with generally good exposure. There’s some whiteout in bright outdoor scenes, but it’s actually a little less than on the Galaxy S II. Windows Phones compress photos and videos less, and this leads to better quality, though the files are a bit larger than on Android phones and iOS. You can sync photos using Zune or the Mac desktop connector that syncs to iPhoto, and you can upload photos and videos manually or automatically to Microsoft’s SkyDrive services. You can also share via messaging, Hotmail, email, Twitter, Facebook and Evernote. As a camera phone, both the Samsung Focus S and the 8 megapixel HTC Titan do a good job.

 

Conclusion

It’s hard to not like a smartphone with serious Samsung Galaxy S II DNA when married to the elegant and enjoyable Windows Phone Mango OS. The display is lovely and Samsung’s Super AMOLED technology makes those colorful Live Tiles pop. The phone is fast; in fact it’s extremely fast. That’s a testament to Microsoft’s optimization for second gen single core Qualcomm CPUs and the added benefit is better than average battery life compared to other smartphone platforms. The Focus S easily lasts through the day, even with heavy use. Call quality is top notch and reception is good. The camera takes very pleasing and sharp photos and good 720p video. Our only complaints are the plasticky build and extreme slipperiness of the phone: get a case.

Source

Design and aesthetics. The Droid RAZR is only three millimeters thick, making it slimmer than a CD case. What’s more is its sophisticated, stunningly refined stylistic design: it is actually assembled around sculpted glass, and features “diamond-cut” aluminum accents. That is a beautiful thing. The phone is also coated in scratch and damage-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass and Kevlar, making its design just as solid as it is sleek.

Processor speed. The Droid RAZR moves at lightning speed, with reported 18Mbps upload speeds and 3Mbps download speeds. Any media-rich website you wish to view on your Droid RAZR will load instantaneously, and you can run numerous programs consecutively in the background with absolutely no lag time. These qualities make the Droid RAZR perfect for multi-tasking on the go.

Battery life. One long-term issue with smart phones is battery drainage. After all, smart phones must do a lot, and that takes up a lot of battery juice. The Droid RAZR’s new Smart Actions feature is designed to extend the life of the battery so that you have to worry less about recharging, promising up to thirty percent more battery power than your average smart phone. That’s over twelve hours of extra talk time.

Multimedia. The Droid RAZR comes preloaded with a ton of useful, cutting edge applications. You can even stream high-definition videos from Netflix – a first for smart phone technology. You can also access all the sites you need to keep your business running smoothly while you’re on the go – like your email fax services, document sharing accounts, and more.

Security. Your Droid RAZR will come equipped with a multitude of high-end security features, including PIN lock, remote wiping and government-level encryption for your contacts list, calendar and email.

Storage. You will be amazed to know that, in spite of its diminutive size, the Droid RAZR actually comes with 8GB of internal storage, plus a 16GB micro SD card, which can be upgraded to a 32 GB card. That’s a lot of storage.

If you want the best and the latest smart phone technology, then the Droid RAZR is for you. After reading over this list of awesome Droid RAZR features, how can you resist not running out an grabbing this hot commodity today?

A 1.5GHz Scorpion processor, 512MB of RAM, and a Adreno 205 GPU make up the inside of the Titan. Though the phone’s screen is pushing the dimensional limits of a pocket, the resolution is still 800×480. The 8-megapixel rear camera can capture 720p video, and is accompanied by a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera. The Titan will run Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, an OS that includes a form of pseudo-multitasking called “tombstoning”. The HTC Titan Review will introduce you the full specs and features.

The processor is fast, but the rest of the specs—RAM, video-recording resolution, screen—seem a bit lackluster, making us balk a bit at the $199 price tag. Still, if you want a giant phone running Windows, this is going to be the frontrunner. The phone is not yet available for preorders, but will be towering over the other handsets—literally—soon enough.

The EVO Design 4G has very good voice quality and solid reception too. It actually managed to occasionally pull in a WiMAX 4G signal indoors, which isn’t a common occurrence in our offices. Outdoor reception was quite good, and the phone averaged 3 megs down and 1 meg up in a mediocre coverage area. 3G did well by Sprint standards, and the phone averaged 770k down and 550k up. This is a world phone with a GSM radio and SIM card slot (Sprint SIM card included) for world roaming. It will not work on T-Mobile and AT&T in the US, as they’re blocked in the phone’s firmware.

The EVO Design 4G runs HTC Sense 3.0 software and it has the usual collection of HTC apps like Peep and Friendstream as well as Sprint’s music, radio and TV services but not Sprint ID. It has a front 1.3 megapixel video chat camera and rear 5 megapixel camera with LED flash.

The phone is well made, elegant and sturdy. It features HTC’s liberal use of metal and soft touch finishes and it looks like a quality piece of hardware. The colors are understated and the Super LCD is sharp, accurate and bright. For a mid-range Android smartphone, the Design 4G seems positively upscale, but you do give up the dual core CPU found on more expensive phones and you don’t get an 8 megapixel shooter. Still, it’s good counterpart to the larger and more expensive HTC EVO 3D to make sure that the mentioned sentence check HTC EVO 3D Review.

HTC EVO Design 4G Video Review

Conclusion

The HTC EVO Design 4G lives up to the EVO name. It’s a chic piece with a lovely design, good quality materials and a sharp, high resolution LCD. For $99 vs. more expensive EVO models, you’ll forego a dual core CPU, but the 1.2GHz Snapdragon CPU is no slouch and the phone moves along nicely and can handle gaming and video playback just fine.

Price: $99 with a 2 year contract after rebate, $399 without contract

iPhone 4-Esque

On the surface, the iPhone 4S resembles its predecessor, the iPhone 4. It maintains the same 4.5 inch by 2.31 inch by 0.37 inch design, although it is nominally heavier at 4.9 ounces. It is available in black and white versions (and yes, the white version is actually available this time) for AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. It also maintains the same dock connector, volume, and home buttons, in the same places, as well as the beautiful 3.5-inch 960 x 640 pixel retina display. It’s not AMOLED, but its 326 ppi pixel density and 800:1 contrast ratio are gorgeous and easily viewable both indoors and out.

Also like the iPhone 4, the 4S features WiFi 802.11b/g/n, but unlike the 4, the 4S has been upgraded to Bluetooth version 4.0, which enhances its battery life.

In addition to the 16 GB version for $199 and the 32 GB version for $299 (with contract), Apple has introduced a 64 GB model for $399, which is handy for those of us who crave extra storage space for apps, music, and video (the exact amount you can store depends on your choice of apps and encoding settings).

Faster! Faster! More Intense!

Under the hood, however, the iPhone 4S is a major upgrade. It features a dual-core A5 processor with 512 MB of RAM, rather than the single-core A4 found in the iPhone 4. So what does that mean exactly? This phone is FAST. Opening apps, multitasking, typing on the on-screen keyboard, and swiping through windows are all an instantaneous breeze. iOS devices have always felt snappy, but the 4S feels faster than ever.

Mobile Safari is equally impressive (although there’s still no Flash), zipping through web pages in a way that feels more like a desktop computer than a phone. On the Sunspider 0.9.1 Javascript rendering test, Safari on the 4S scores an amazing overall score of 2241.6 ms as opposed to 4015 for the iPhone 4 or 3353 for the Samsung Galaxy S II (lower numbers are better). Speed is one of the main selling points of the iPhone 4S, and it certainly does not disappoint in that respect. In Browsermark, the iPhone 4 scored an extremely impressive 88,416 vs. 35,901 for the iPhone 4 and 46,245 for the Droid Bionic (higher numbers are better).

iPhone 4S Video Review

Here’s our video review of the iPhone 4S (the AT&T version was used for this video). We’ll add a video review of the Verizon iPhone 4S in a few days.

iPhone 4S on AT&T vs. Verizon Wireless Comparison:

Calling and Data

Apple has addressed the sometimes-controversial antenna from the iPhone 4 by implementing a dual-antenna system in the 4S, in which the phone intelligently selects between the two antennas to find the stronger signal strength. Using the not-so-reliable “bar marks,” we got 3-4 bars of 3G coverage on the 4S in a moderate coverage area, versus 2-3 bars on earlier iPhone models.

On AT&T, Apple has also updated the 3G connection to 14.4 Mbps HSDPA (although 3G speeds are unchanged on Verizon and Sprint). Using Ookla’s SpeedTest app on AT&T, we averaged speeds of 289 ms ping / 3.75 Mbps download / 1.07 Mbps upload in the Portland Oregon area and 159 ms ping/4.9Mbps down/1.08Mbps up in the Dallas area.

These are respectable scores, and some marketing departments (hello AT&T and T-Mobile) might even like to call them “4G,” but the fact remains that for now, the iPhone is still a 3G phone. Now that true 4G LTE phones are becoming commonplace on Verizon and should arrive on AT&T in the next few months, this may be a sore spot among some potential buyers, but Apple does have its reasons for waiting on 4G; the availability of 4G is still somewhat limited, and 4G chips tend to wreak havoc on battery life and increase phone size. You may agree with Apple here, or you may not, but they made a conscious decision that 4G wasn’t ready for prime time – it’s not as if they simply “forgot” 4G or couldn’t figure it out.

Voice calls were crisp and clear, including on speakerphone. This is a marked improvement over the iPhone 4, whose call quality wasn’t very good. In fact, we absolutely love the iPhone 4S as a voice phone. Although dropped calls continue to plague some iPhone users on AT&T, in our tests, iPhone 4S didn’t drop more calls than other non-iPhone AT&T phones.

The iPhone 4S is a true world phone that has both CDMA and GSM radios built-in, regardless of which carrier sells it. That means Apple can make one piece of hardware that AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and overseas carriers can sell, with only software customizations. The phone uses the usual (for Apple) micro SIM for the GSM side of things, and it’s quad band GSM with 3G on the 850/900/1900/2100Mhz bands (T-Mobile’s 3G bands are missing). It has EV-DO Rev. A 3G for use on Verizon, Sprint and overseas roaming in CDMA countries like Korea. Should you travel overseas, you can either pay your carrier’s international roaming rates, or get the GSM side unlocked so you can use the SIM card of your choice (Verizon will provide an unlock code, but not AT&T). So far, Verizon is the only carrier stating that they’ll unlock the iPhone 4S for customers in good standing. That doesn’t mean you can pop in an AT&T SIM though; the Verizon iPhone’s firmware blocks using AT&T SIM cards.

It’s A Sony!

Another major upgrade to the iPhone 4S is its 8-megapixel Sony camera with redesigned optics, autofocus, geotagging, and an LED flash, plus onboard photo editing. It can shoot video with audio up to 1080p at 30 frames per second and also features image stabilization. (The phone also has a VGA FaceTime camera on the front.) The camera is also much faster than most cell phones, allowing you to fire it up and take a picture within about one second.

Photos taken with the 4S’ camera are impressive and colorful without being oversaturated. Likewise, videos are crisp and detailed. Whereas most cell phone cameras are the camera you use in a pinch since it is likely the only one available, the camera on the 4S is good enough that novice to mid-range photographers may actually want to make it their primary camera. Video quality is noticeably better than the iPhone 4, and low light photos are better thanks to the 4S’ fast F/2.4 lens and backside illuminated sensor. That’s a great compliment considering how good the iPhone 4′s 5 megapixel camera is. The iPhone 4S camera holds its own vs. better 8 megapixel camera phones on the market like the HTC Amaze 4G, and bests the Motorola Droid Bionic’s slow and less colorful 8 megapixel shooter.

Battery

The iPhone 4S’ non user-replaceable lithium-ion battery is rated for 8 hours talk time on 3G, 10 hours of video playback, 40 hours of audio playback, 6 hours of 3G data usage, 9 hour of WiFi data, or 300 hours of standby. In our tests, we found these estimates to be roughly on target. If you use your iPhone frequently throughout the day, you’ll probably make it to the evening, although especially heavy users may want to buy an external battery. People who don’t use their iPhones very often… don’t really exist.

Two’s Company, Five’s iCloud

The iPhone 4S comes preloaded with iOS 5, and while this is not a review of iOS 5, it’s worth noting that that gets you access to over-the-air updates, iCloud automatic syncing, revamped notifications, and a hardware shutter button (volume up) – nice! For iCloud syncing you can select from email, notes, contacts, calendar, bookmarks, photos and videos, backups over WiFi, and you can deselect any you don’t need. The version of Mobile Safari in iOS 5 has been shown to improve browsing speeds even on the humble iPhone 3GS.

Siri

But wait, there’s “one more thing” – by now, you’ve probably heard of the iPhone 4S’ new personal assistant, Siri.

Longtime Apple fans may find Siri eerily similar to the “Assist” button from back in the days of the Newton… you know, just press Assist, write, in your own words, something like, “Please schedule a meeting on Friday,” and it gives you a message back saying something like, “Confirmed, I have just sold your car.”

So if Apple wants to venture into “humanoid assistant” territory again, this time they’d better get it right. Thankfully, they did. Siri’s roots hail back to a DARPA project that was privatized after a decade, and Apple bought that company. With Siri, all you have to do is hold down the Home button and tap on the on-screen microphone, and you can give voice commands setting up appointments, adding reminders, checking weather, asking for information, or numerous other commands, all in natural English. In our tests, Siri worked amazingly well. We did have some issues with server lag or unresponsiveness, but accuracy was unbelievably good, both in terms of understanding the words we were saying and in terms of interpreting what we meant. Siri is also a source of entertainment, much like the world’s first computer shrink Eliza– try asking Siri “what’s the meaning of life” to see what I mean.

The 4S also has an option to let you dictate text into apps instead of using the on-screen keyboard.

To Siri, With Love

OK, it’s not the iPhone 5, but Apple managed key improvements that bring the iPhone up to date and keep it competitive with Android and even the still young but impressive Windows Phone 7 Mango. It’s no bull, the phone is twice as fast in terms of CPU performance and more than twice as fast for graphics. In fact, in our tests, it beats most Android phones on benchmarks. For GSM users (that means AT&T in the US), data speeds are also twice as fast as the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS. iOS 5 likewise adds competitive modern features like OTA updates, a cloud syncing service and much improved notifications. The iPhone 4S’ most significant innovation is Siri, the voice-activated personal assistant. It works remarkably well for so many tasks and it doesn’t require scripted commands. Siri may well be the future of computing.

Price: $199 for 16 gig, $299 for 32 gig and $399 for 64 gig with a 2 year contract on all US carriers. No contract pricing starts at $649 as does unlocked GSM version.

Source: MobileTechReview.com

So just what does the iPhone 4S have that makes it worth purchasing?

A Faster Processor

Like the iPad 2, the iPhone 4S is running A5 – a dual core processor. The new iPhone dominates all previous iPhones by delivering a SunSpider 9.1 JavaScript benchmark score of 2,200 ms. The iPhone 4S’ speed is also proving to be faster than any other smart phone currently on the market.

An Advanced Camera

If you liked taking pictures with your iPhone before, you’ll love taking them with the iPhone 4S. In addition to an upgrading to 8 MP, the new iPhone’s camera also has a backside-illuminated sensor and a f/2.4 aperture. For photographers, this means wider, brighter, and clearer photos. The camera can also now be accessed without having to unlock the phone. All users have to do is point and shoot with their volume button.

A Virtual Assistant

One word: Siri. While Siri has shown to still have a few glitches, the advanced virtual assistant is definitely the best on the market. Not only does the virtual assistant comprehend various commands, but it also gets use to the sound of your voice over time and provides not just answers, but actual feedback.

A Greater Storage Capacity

The iPhone 4S has twice the storage capacity of the iPhone 4. Now iPhone users are able to purchase the maximum storage capacity of 64GB for their phone, instead of the once standard 32GB.

So before you decide you stick with your current iPhone 4 or wait it out for the iPhone 5 – which, let’s face it, who knows when that will be available – consider giving the iPhone 4S a second look. With all the additional features that come backed into an already recognizable case, you may just find that it is the smartphone you’ve always wanted.