Sunday 18 October 2015

Vector Luna Smartwatch

Vector Luna Smartwatch

A smartwatch with unrivalled design and battery life but an entirely absent eco-system.

It’s high time somebody disrupted the narrative of the Silicon Valley disruptor. Still a nascent product category, smartwatches have so far been dominated by internet giants, laptop manufacturers and venture-backed Kickstarter darlings; meanwhile, all those staid watch companies from Casio to Rolex haven’t had a look in.

Huawei Honor 7

Huawei Honor 7

Huawei is at it again with a new follow-up addition to its premium Honor range. Can this midrange handset compete with the best flagship models?

Huawei sub-brand Honor has continued to make a name for itself thanks to competitively priced handsets that perform very close to the best flagships money can buy. The previous Honor 6 was a big hit, with impressive performance and a cheap price tag. The newer Honor 7 aims to carry on the success with an updated design and improved hardware. Will it succeed?

Acer Liquid Z220

Acer Liquid Z220

Acer’s new smartphone is one of the cheapest on the market but will it stand up to expectations?

Acer has made a daring leap to the top of the budget phone market by going to the bottom with the release of the Acer Liquid Z220, its cheapest Android phone to date. But what makes this particular budget phone special is that it’s the first Acer phone to ship running Google’s Lollipop 5.0 operating system. Acer is well associated with personal computers, boasting it is the fourth largest personal computer vendor in the world in 2014. In the world of mobile phones, however, Acer caters to the lower end of the mobile market and has solidified that reputation further with the Z220.

Apple iPhone 6S

Apple iPhone 6S

The ‘S’ verion of the iPhone 6 has a few extra bells and whistles compared with its year-old predecessor. But are they enough to tempt current iPhone users to upgrade?

Is it that time again already? Every September for the past few years, Apple has chosen to hold an event which focuses around the launch of a new iPhone device. This year, we reach version six of the provisional ‘s’ line. Seen by many as a placeholder until the eventual launch of the next major iPhone milestone, the ‘s’ handset has always been the less exciting launch of the two. This year, however, Apple actually has some quite significant upgrades going on under the hood of their new device. As the first smartphone to debut Force Touch (now renamed 3D Touch), it marks an important peak into the future of UI design for the company.

OnePlus 2

OnePlus 2

OnePlus’s new entry in the smartphone market is only the second in its short history but will it stand tall among giants?

OnePlus is a new player in the game and with the release of the OnePlus 2 it has launched only its second attack on the ever expansive mobile phone market. Founded only in late 2013, OnePlus had impressed with its debut the OnePlus One, which we scored 9.0 as it impressed with class-leading specifications and its toptier quality build.