A Decent Smartphone For Just £99?

For this weeks Appy Friday, we are letting you know about the newest affordable smartphone on the market. Honor has released their cheapest phone yet, the Honor 7S, which is only £99 so great for anyone on a budget. So what do you get for your money? Read on to find out...

If you're in the market for a budget smartphone this year, then this new release from Honor may just be the answer. You may not have heard of Honor, but they’re a subsidiary brand of Huawei, the largest telecoms manufacturer in the world. The Honor company aim to provide cheap devices for smartphone users and the 7S has been no exception to this as it is on sale for just £99! Even the highest quality phone from Honor retails for only £445. The aim of the Honor 7S is to just provide the essentials of what people want from a smartphone.

The 7S’s price is a shock when you read some of its features. There is a 13MP rear camera with PDAF fast focusing technology and a 5MP front camera with LED selfie light. Perfect for capturing images even in low lit areas. Along with this, the phone has a great receiver so that you can make clear sounding phone calls even if you’re in a loud area. There is also space for 2 SIMs and a microSD and a smart managed battery.

The 7S has a 5.45-inch screen with a 1440 x 720 resolution and can record 1080p videos. The phone also has a decent size battery with the capacity of 3,020mAh. The 7S also runs on Android 8.1 (currently the very latest version) and has a 1.5Ghz quad-core processor. There is also the generic 3.5mm headphone jack on the top.

Overall, the 7S sounds like it’ll be the best phone for its price point as it has all the essentials that you need on a smartphone. This phone would be perfect for all those people who don’t have £1000+ to spend on a phone. Although it’s a basic, it would be perfect for anyone who isn’t in need of an all singing all dancing phone, as this has no frills but is great at what it does.

So, that was this weeks Appy Friday. I think this phone is so different from any of the other really cheap phones on the market and is actually pretty decent quality. This phone will be great if you aren’t really in need of a phone that can do it all, just one that can do the essentials. Let us know if you will be trying the new Honor phone! We’ll be getting one shortly at Appware HQ so will let you know how we get on with it.

Top 5 Bits Of Tech You Can Buy Right Now!

For this week’s Appy Friday we are letting you know about 5 bits of top tech that you can buy right now. It ranges from phones and TVs to VR headsets so there’s something on this list for everyone to try, with a wide range of prices.

Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus Smartphone
Price: £929
This is one of the best (if not the best) smartphones on the market at the moment as it comes with everything you could want. Great performance, and an especially good camera so you can always capture a great photo. This phone has a lovely 6.2-inch screen, with decent battery life so is a great phone to try this year.

Samsung Q9FN QLED TV
Price: From £2,499.00
This TV has the full works, it’s huge (from 55 to a whopping 75-inch screen!) with great well-rounded sound, and has incredible HDR picture quality. However, this TV does come with a hefty price tag, although the TV is incredibly high quality and you definitely get what you pay for with this device. This Samsung TV uses a FALD (Full Array Local Dimming) panel in conjunction with QLED Quantum Dots to create a brighter and more colourful picture.

Moov Now Fitness Tracker
Price: £47
This small fitness tracker is a great alternative to a FitBit, as it has a great 6-month battery life so there’ll be no batteries cutting out and dying. With this device, you can track your steps, sleep, fitness, and running technique. Along with many other features, you can use it to help you keep on top of your health and fitness this year.

HTC Vive VR Headset
Price: £499
If you’re into VR, then this could be the perfect headset for you. The HTC Vive claims to be the best VR headset on the market. The resolution is of the highest quality with a 1080p screen per eye. Although the headset comes with a rather high price tag (and you also need a high spec computer too), if you're in the market for a VR headset then this is the best one on the market to try this year.

Sennheiser Momentum Wireless Headphones
Price: £272.50
This pair of headphones is a pretty good all-rounder as it has wireless capabilities, great battery life and a nice sleek look. As everyone looks for something slightly different in headphones (whether that be ones to go to the gym in or just headphones for watching things on the go), these are the best all-rounders with them being both wireless and having great high sound quality.

So, there is this week’s Appy Friday. Personally, the one gadget that I would like to try this year is the Momentum Wireless Headphones or the HTC Vive as the Vive is such an innovative high-quality product which is the best in its field. Let us know if you’ll be trying any of these devices this year!

Nintendo Labo!

For this week’s Appy Friday we are giving you a rundown on the Nintendo Labo. It’s a range of DIY toys to make the accessories for the best selling Nintendo Switch. Whether you’re a lover of music and want to make the cardboard piano or want to build your own robot, the Nintendo Labo range allows you to create anything.

The Nintendo Switch was a huge success for Nintendo when it was released in March 2017 and sold over 10 million units within the first 10 months of it being available which made it the fastest-selling console of US history.

Now Nintendo has produced the Labo which was announced in early 2018. Labo is a line of DIY toys that can be connected to the Switch or Joy-Con controller which opens up a new range of games on the Switch. The Labo acts like the extra accessories you could buy for the Nintendo Wii. Accessories like a steering wheel for Mario Kart, but with Labo, you make your own accessories out of the cardboard pieces.

When you buy one of the accessories from Labo it comes in a small kit. In the kit there are multiple pieces of pre-cut cardboard, specifically cut to create your own little constructions that Nintendo call Toy-Cons. Also in the kit, is the digital manual to guide you through building the toys on the Switch itself. The hope of the Nintendo Labo is to get people interested in the engineering of devices, design and gaming.

There are many toys available to create; a fishing rod to play the fishing game, you can make a piano, you can even build a robot suit that has a visor and backpack to turn you into a real-life robot! And you can even put together a small car to drive around your house. There are two main Labo kits, the first being the ‘Variety Kit’ which comes with several toys to make and costs £59.99, the second being the robot kit which allows you to build the robot suit and it costs £69.99 which was released April 27th, 2018.

On the Joy-Con controllers, there is an embedded camera and the console has a touchscreen. This means that if you have the piano Toy-Con, it can actually watch the piano keys to see which you are pressing and see how well you are doing. The Nintendo Labo has endless opportunities to make new and innovative creations. This makes the games more exciting and interactive, getting people involved in creating the toys themselves.

So, that’s this weeks Appy Friday. I think the idea of creating your own accessories is so innovative. It makes the idea of the Switch so much more ingenious, as no matter what your age, you can enjoy building the Toy-Cons. It’s very different from anything any of the console manufacturers have done before. Let us know if you would try the Labo or already have some of the kits!

Wearable Camera Glasses?

For this week's Appy Friday, we are giving you a rundown on the new release from Snapchat, the V2 Snapchat Spectacles. The V1 glasses weren’t the best, and it’s clear to see the glasses have taken a massive step up and could quite possibly be the most wearable and practical camera glasses yet.

The new Snapchat Spectacles V2 is a big step up from the first Snapchat glasses as they now take photos as well as videos. They don’t have the yellow ring in the corner notifying people to the camera and that you’re recording. The V2 glasses are also much more convenient, useful and stylish than the previous model. They are now waterproof so having underwater capabilities allows for much cooler shots to be taken.

The look of these glasses has also improved massively with classier colour options, lighter lenses, slimmer frames and charging cases. The V2 glasses have a much sleeker look and aren’t as chunky as previously. The colour options are onyx black, ruby red and sapphire blue, you then have a choice between natural or mirrored lens. Another great thing about this new and improved model is that there are prescription options which make them more practical for everyone.

The glasses come in a much nicer and more practical case, the bright yellow case is now 1/3 smaller making it easier to fit into pockets or handbags, which again make them much more wearable than before. The battery on the spectacles has also been improved and is said to have enough charge and memory to store up to 150 videos or 3,000 photos. It has 4GB flash storage and there are an extra four charges in the case as well. One more thing that has been massively improved with this upgrade, is the syncing of images and videos to your phone. It has been improved hugely as it’s so much faster than previously. Another thing that has been fixed is that there is now another microphone which helps to keep wind noise to a minimum, and also accounts for people talking so that the user isn’t much louder than the people around them in videos.

Snapchat spectacles are very easy to use as you long-press for a photo and tap to record a 10-second video. Extra taps then prolong the clip to 30 seconds long. The quality of the videos is 1216 x 1216 pixels and the images are 1642 x 1642 pixels. Both of these features light up a small ring in the corner to warn people that you are recording however compared to V1 it’s much more discrete.

The lenses have been much more thought through on this version, as they have been made more transparent in order to make it easier to use and record in lower light, so you are limited to only using them when it’s super sunny outside. However, they are still UVA and UVB rated so they can be used just like regular sunglasses.

There is one main downfall to these and that is that you can’t download the images and videos straight to camera roll. You have to transfer your content to your Snapchat first then download them to your camera roll. Also, they aren’t cheap glasses they cost £149.99, however, these could be great if you travel a lot as there’s no need to lug around a large camera all the time.

So, there’s this week’s Appy Friday. I think the glasses have taken a giant leap from the first version, as the look, effectiveness and usefulness have improved massively. Although they still have a little way to go I think they’re a really fun gadget to play with and take some great images with. Let us know what you think to these V2 glasses, and whether or not you’ll be trying them!

Is This The Best New Budget Smartphone On The Market?

This week for Appy Friday we’re giving you a great budget alternative smartphone, seeing as not all of us can justify the £1000 Samsung and Apple devices. The new Motorola devices have the potential to be the best budget smartphones on the market. So we’re going to give you a rundown of what makes these devices so great for the price.

The first two phones from Motorola are the Moto G6 and Moto G6 Play. Both of these are due for release in the UK on May 9th 2018. The most expensive of the four new phones from Motorola is the Moto G6 which is £219. There is also a slightly upgraded version of this exclusive to Amazon with more RAM (4GB rather than 3GB) and more internal memory (64GB rather than 32GB) for just £20 more. The G6 has a premium feel with a curved 3D glass design similar to the old Moto X4. The G6 has a 5.7-inch screen with 1080p full HD resolution, there is also an oval shape finger sensor on the phone, to help it keep up to date with the latest more expensive devices. The camera on this phone also keeps up to date with Samsung and Apple as it has dual rear cameras (12MP and 5MP) and an 8MP front camera. The camera also has some great features using AI where you can point your camera at a landmark and it will provide information about it. There’s also another camera mode which allows you to scan text and select only the parts you want to copy.

The Moto G6 Play is fairly similar to the original G6 however it’s a little be cheaper at £169.99. This device has the same size screen as 18:9 with a 5.7-inch HD+ screen so it’s identical to the more expensive version. The camera on this device is a single 13MP rear and an 8MP front camera. So overall there isn’t much difference between the two Moto G6 variations.

The next two budget phones from Motorola are the E5’s, there is the E5 Plus and the E5 Play (though not in the UK). The Moto E5 will cost £119 in the UK, while the Moto E5 Plus is an additional £30 at £149. Both of these phones are due for release during June in the UK.The E5 Plus has an 18:9 6-inch HD+ screen along with a 12MP rear camera and an 8MP front camera like the other two Motorola smartphones. The E5 Plus also has the largest battery out of all the new Motorola devices.

So, there’s this weeks Appy Friday. I think these devices are a great alternative to the £1000+ smartphones, the Moto G6, in particular, is a great device with a good camera and features which make it the best budget phone available at the moment. Let us know if you’re going to try one of these devices!

New Apple Mac Pro In 2019?

For Appy Friday this week, we’re giving you all we know on the Apple Mac Pro. With it being rumoured to be released in 2019, there are lots of rumours going around about what this new desktop will contain and look like as it’s highly anticipated. So, here’s all we know about the price, spec, look and release dates.

It’s been many years since the release of the last Mac Pro, Apple hinted about a Mac Pro upgrade last year. Then later on in December 2017, they had a press release for the new iMac Pro sale so from then on it was clear that the new Mac was in active development.

The new Apple dedicated desktop is set for release in early 2019 and it’s more than likely that is will cost roughly the same as the current models if not slightly more.

The 2013 Mac Pro computer was first seen at the 2013 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June 2013 and was then released for sale in December 2013. That being the case it is still possible for the new desktop to be teased at the WWDC 2018, however, it’s unlikely that the computer will make it into the public's hands before early 2019. If it doesn’t make an appearance there, however, it could be seen at the latest in October/ November time after the September iPhone launch.

Apple said that the new Mac Pro would be designed for the pro customers as it will be designed to the highest level of performance and design. The system also will have a new high-end display. There were some rumours in September that it would have an 8K resolution screen with a 32-inch display.

Something that you don’t have to wait for though is the release of the Product (RED) iPhone 8 and 8 Plus which is released on 13th April. Apple released the Product (RED) iPhone 7 at a similar time last year with some of the proceeds going to fighting HIV and AIDS in Africa.

So, there’s all we know about the 2019 release of the new Mac Pro. Also the new Product (RED) iPhone 8 and 8 Plus release today, let us know if you’ll be buying the red iPhone or if you’re waiting to buy the Mac Pro in 2019.

Driving The Future of Technology

Driverless cars have been at the forefront of the media recently and could well be one of the top revolutionary technologies to be launched on the world in a very long time.

We love apps, gadgets and computers, but driverless cars is exciting stuff and something we should all be interested in.  They could be hitting our roads very soon and their key benefits include:

• Massively reduced emissions
• An increase in productivity and could boost the economy
• End the trouble of congestion in a world that seems to get busier
• Help the disabled and elderly to become more mobile
• It could save around a million lives every single year

The car changed the world some 100 years ago with its introduction and the driverless car could do the same again. These benefits could solve a lot of the problems we face on our roads over the coming years, which is an extremely exciting prospect. People who enjoy the experience of driving may disagree with those that just see a car as a way to get from A to B though.

Although this sounds extremely simple, it is a lot more complex than this, which is partly why the idea hasn’t been produced at any point prior to this. There are problems facing the driverless car which will take some ironing out, including the sudden dart out of an animal in front of the moving vehicle for example. Most human drivers would react in such a way as too try and swerve around the animal, whereas the driverless car may not as it's interest is in keeping the driver safe. Grim as it may sound, technology is never perfect and people will need to understand that.

Anyway, this is a small speed bump and should not stand in the way of an idea that is absolutely incredible and one that could completely revolutionise the car market and the environment. This invention could very well be up there with the transformative technology for the next 50 years. All we know is that this is something we will be keeping a close eye on for the next few years.

We would love to know your thoughts and opinions though. Do you think driverless technology is a good idea or not? Leave your comments below.

What Will 2014 Bring to the Tech World

So, 2014 is finally here and we can reflect on a year that was full of gadgets that hit the tech world by storm. But, without reflecting too much on last year’s technology, can we begin to look forward to an even better year?

We will have a look at some of this year’s possibilities and pieces of tech that will light up the industry (literally).

Technology never stops moving and this is what we can expect in 2014:

1. Our Tablets Will Get Bigger

The likes of the iPad Mini and the small-screen Nexus 7, were just a little phase. Samsung looks to be bringing out a massive 12-inch Galaxy Note. If that isn’t big enough, Panasonic looks to introduce a 20-inch ToughPad with 4K resolution – perfect for photographers, architects and well, anybody. As tablets look to replace many laptops and computers it will mean we will spend less time squinting and more time surfing.

2. 3D Printing Will Kickstart A New Era

In 2014 alone, shipments around the world of 3D printers is predicted to grow by 75%, which is then likely to double again in 2015. 3D printing could prove to be a game changer in the design world and has rapidly collected a highly anticipated reputation; one that makes us very excited. Printing black text on to white paper is such a thing of the past.

3. Smartphones Could Get A Backbone

Our favourite smartphones could gain the ability to bend, improving their claim to be ‘unbreakable’. We have already seen examples of this type of screen and the smart watches released last year gave us a little glimpse of what’s to come, but 2014 could see the real growth of ‘bendy’ screens.

4. Video Looks To Dominate The Web

Like the bendy screens, we have already seen plenty of examples that video is taking over the web and more specifically, social media. With the introduction of 4K TVs and video support, viewing your favourite funny compilations on your favourite devices could become even more high definition. With everyone looking to stream video content at home, at work or out and about, our networks are likely to improve too.

5. Smartphones Will Remain Top Of The Tree

Regardless of the publicity surrounding the likes of Google Glass, Galaxy Gear and other wearables, smartphones will look to remain the cream of the crop and will dominate the consumer markets. With new features in their plenty and ease of access, smartphones look to grow stronger in 2014 and the race for the top manufacture should really hot up this year. We can’t wait.

What's On Your Christmas Wish List?

As we near the end of November, everyone will start to think of ideas to put at the top of their wish list or what they are going to buy for their nearest and dearest.

But, what will it be?

It is predicted that at the top of most people’s lists this year will be tablets and smartphones, which is great news for us because it means we can talk about it a bit more. It’s hardly surprising that gadgets are the in-thing this year, with so much available and so many impressive features, who wouldn’t want the latest smartphone or tablet.

We have made some predictions of what we think are going to be the top dogs when it comes to technology sales this year. The top 3, in no particular order, include:

1. Microsoft Surface 2 – Microsoft really have hit the sweet spot this year with their new tablet. It’s quick, it’s easy and it’s practical and will undoubtedly be the top of many peoples list. With smooth additions like the new Type 2 keyboard (available in a number of colours) it is turning into a must-have tablet, not just for Christmas, but for every day.
2. Apple iPad Air – Another tablet, but Apple has created a beautiful piece of kit which offers a compact, lightweight yet powerful return on investment. Apple always do well around this time of year and it’s seems like they have the released the Air at the right time. 
3. PlayStation 4 – Yeah, we know, it might not be a smartphone or a tablet but it almost written in the stars that Sony dominate the Christmas sales. Their new console is set to hit the shops and with it already being sold out virtually everywhere, it surely has to feature in this list. With games like Call of Duty, which is always a record-breaker around this time, the PS4 is a Christmas must-have too. Although, it will have to fight off competition from the new Xbox which has been released this week. 
4. Apple iPhone 5S – Although many people might not be inclined to buy this handset outright for Christmas (it is pricey), its sales are still likely to skyrocket. With its recent release, people may still be wishing their pile of presents consists of the 5S, but they will have to wait and see if it is under their Christmas tree. 
5. Christmas Apps – Admittedly, this isn’t a piece of technology as such, but for those that already have the latest technology before Christmas, you can download all sorts of Christmassy-type apps that can count down the days till the big day, track Santa on his quest around the word and a calendar that you can open every day for a little addictive game or coupon. 

There is still some time yet before Christmas, but it might be worth putting your orders in with Santa pretty sharpish before your wish list is all sold out.