Samsung Story Station 1.5TB Hard Drive Review

I personally use a LOT of storage space. Producing video eats up terrabytes, so having some reliable backup solution is very important. The Samsung Story Station offers up some serious storage in a nice looking package. You will also find a handy formatting tip for Mac users. Check out the review below.

Product: Samsung Story Station 1.5TB Hard Drive
Price: Under £100
Supplied by: Scan Computers
Contact: 0871 472 4747

HTC Hero - Android Goodness - The Full Review

For my regular readers, you will have already seen my video footage of the HTC Hero. It was a fun time, to finally try and give up my iPhone for an alternative platform. For all of you who haven't seen the video footage, you will find it on my YouTube Channel or throughout this review.


To kick things off, I must say that I was very impressed with the build quality. This is a sleek mobile phone, with a distinct angle near the microphone and of the unit. People cutely refer to this as 'the chin'. The design is an acquired taste, but I think that most people will find it endearing. The size is also very nice. Although not much smaller than an iPhone, it has some nice bevels and curves, so feels a lot smaller, and dare I say it 'more mobile phone-like'. This is also down to the slightly smaller 3.2-inch (320x480) screen. However, this sort of size is ideal for general use and also looks very good for web and movie browsing too. In the box you get a handsfree kit, USB cable, wall charger, quickstart guide and the Hero itself. We were lucky enough to get sent a white unlocked version from Clove Technology. This has an ultra smooth finish with a teflon coating (the white is the only colour to have this). The special coating is meant to repel greasy fingerprints... in my tests it certainly did.

 

Out of the box, setting up the Hero is very simple. This handset runs on the Google Android platform. As such it is very friendly to you, if you use Google's services, such as Gmail. Luckily I do, so tapping in my account settings had me up and running with my email in about 90 seconds. To say I was impressed with the ease of this initial setup is an understatement.

How this differs from other Android based handsets is the user interface (UI). The manufacturer (HTC) have developed an overlay UI called 'Sense'. Basically, this makes everything look nicely designed, all the screens match and you get a nice funky keyboard too. They also developed their own Twitter application, so at setup stage you are also prompted for your Twitter account. You can leave this for later on, but I popped in my details and it all went swimmingly well.

With the Hero up and running, you are presented with your home screen. Swiping ones finger across the screen reveals a further six screens, so that's seven in total, that can be customised. You can put shortcuts to applications, plus a whole load of widgets. Widgets are like tiny applications, for things like the weather, clocks, music, Twitter, etc. What makes this a pretty astonishing achievement is that they all 'live update'. So, flicking you finger across to your email widget, shows you your latest emails. The speed of the Hero is pretty good. With a small amount of widgets, there is hardly any lag. If you fill up every screen with a live widget, then you will notice some slowdown. Having said that, any phone that is running loads of processes will exhibit this too.
The internet is really nice to use, with HTC tweaking the standard browser. You get great performance, support for flash (albeit not 100% of flash works, maybe 90%). Plus you get multi-touch. So you can pinch and zoom your way around the internet in style.

 

The camera on this baby is a 5-megapixel offering. There is no flash, but it performs pretty well without it. Very low light situations will mean you get grainy pics. In room light the camera performs great, with good detail. Outdoors it produces well exposed photos, that are very colourful too. Video is not so good, mainly due to the low resolution, but how often are you really going to use it for video? At first (and I mention this is in the video), I was not a great fan of the one-push photo taking. You don't push down halfway with the trackball to focus, then the rest of the way to take the photo, as you would expect. It is all in one action. You push, the focus then locks on and the Hero takes the photo, all in one action. The reason I did not like this at first is because of my passion for photography. It just didn't feel natural. However, now I have got used to the idea, it makes sense. You can hold the mobile more steadily, without fiddling with the buttons to much. A firm push on the trackball and the Hero does its job.

I mentioned the widgets earlier in my review. Well, there really are loads. HTC have done a wonderful job in making the Hero stand out from the crowd. The weather widgets look wonderful. The music widget also looks great and performs well too. I won't list them all here, check out the fourth part of my video coverage below to see what the Sense UI has to offer.

Should Apple be worried? With so many people going the iPhone way, I don't think that they should panic. However, they definitely need to listen up. The iPhone OS is elegant and fluid, but when you sit down and think about it, maybe it is too simple. You brush your finger across pages and pages of icons. That's it, they are just icons. To check your email, you need to touch an icon. When you have finished, you need to come back to the home screen. Then to check your Twitter, another icon... finger cramp could soon ensue. With the HTC Hero, you have all of this information on your home screens. Swipe your finger to another screen and the information for your emails, tweets, weather, bookmarks and music is instantly there.
A lot of people rightly state that the App Store is fantastic. So many free applications and games, easily accessed, easily installed. Some paid apps are pretty cool too. Whilst this is true, the 'Android Market' offers a superb collection of freebies and paid for applications already. Give it another six months and I think it will really excel. Searching, downloading and installing things is so so easy. So this argument doesn't stand.
The HTC Hero is an excellent mobile phone. It offers great build quality and design. The user interface works fine if you don't overload it. The Android platform is quite frankly superb. If you need a smartphone for your emails, internet and social networking, the Hero is highly recommended.
Price: £391
Supplied by: Clove Technology
Contact: 01202 552936

 

Nokia E75 Mobile Phone Review

With the mass introduction of all these smart mobile phones, with touchy feely screens, should we really overlook this classy offering from Nokia. With its business centric design, it might not appeal. Check out the video review though, as a user friendly keyboard could be a boon to all you text toting users out there.

Product: Nokia E75 mobile phone
Price: £335 RRP
Supplied by: Nokia UK
Contact: 0800 331 6021

Griffin Elan Form Ltd Edition case

I always love to pamper my iPod's and iPhone's with good protection. However, some cases get on my goat, as when you go to dock the device, you have to whip it out of the case. Not so with the Elan Form from Griffin Technology. Check out the review below.

Product: Griffin Elan Form Limited Edition case for iPhone 3G & 3GS
Price: £17.14 (Amazon - standard edition) : $29.99
Supplied by: Griffin Technology
Contact: +1 (615) 399-7000

Canon Legria HF-200 HD Camcorder Review

Two videos for you on the Canon Legria HF-200. This HD camcorder promises great recording quality straight to SDHC memory card. In the first video below, I show you what you get for your money. The second video is here, click this link to see some actual footage and comparison with a Sony HDR-HC7 HD MiniDV camcorder.

Technoline BL-700 Intelligent Battery Charger Review

If you (like most of the population) get fed up with having to throw away alkaline batteries, then you need to get some NiMH ones instead. If you are a heavy user, then a good charger is also an essential piece of kit. Check out the review below of the Technoline BL-700.

Product: Technoline BL-700 Battery Charger
Price: £39.99 (for current BL-900 model)
Supplied by: Battery Logic
Contact: 0800 066 4668

Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T Laptop Review

If you want a slim laptop with a Windows flavour, you could do a lot worse than check out my Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T Review.

Product: Acer Aspire Timeline
Price: £549 to £749
Supplied by: Acer UK
Contact: +44 (0)870 853 1005

Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive Review

If you want a cost effective Network Hard Drive, that does what it says on the tin, then check out my review of this tidy unit from Iomega.

Update: There is a new firmware update available here for this device. It adds Remote Access, Torrent Download, Time Machine and FTP support.

Product: Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive
Price: £110.99 (500GB as reviewed)
Supplied by: Iomega Europe
Contact form here

Mophie Juice Pack Air Case Review

The iPhone 3GS certainly has improved battery life. However, if you are a heavy user, then some extra juice is a welcome thing. The Mophie Juice Pack Air is available for all generations of the iPod touch and iPhone. In the video review below, I take a look at the version for the iPhone 3GS and 3G.

Product: Mophie Juice Pack Air (iPhone 3GS/3G)
Price: £67.95 (UK) : $79.95 (US)
Supplied by: Mophie
Contact: 269.415.0217
Order in the UK from MophieUK.

Check out more of my YouTube reviews here.