Post Tagged with: "handson"

Fujitsu’s palm-scanning laptop prototype hands-on

Gallery Photo: Fujitsu palm scanning authentication for laptops hands-on gallery

Fujitsu loves biometric authentication. The company makes the palm scanners you see in Japan’s ATMs, it puts fingerprint scanning in its cellphones, and since 2011 it’s been offering palm scanning in its laptop computers. Unlike the big plastic square of yore, a new version of the laptop scanner is roughly the size of a webcam module; small enough to fit comfortably between the computer’s trackpad buttons.

Fujitsu says that the scanner is secure enough that it can be used to authenticate users on its own, with no need for a separate password. We tried it ourselves, and to the device’s credit it didn’t mistake us for the Fujitsu rep. Next to the palm-scanning laptop we also spotted a Windows tablet with the module, and Fujitsu…

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May 17, 2012 0 comments Read More

LG Optimus LTE 2 and Optimus UI 3.0 hands-on photos

Gallery Photo: LG Optimus LTE 2 hands-on images

We just wrapped up a launch event for the LG Optimus LTE 2 here in Korea, and there’s little doubt that it’s LG’s flagship play. The center of attention is definitely the screen: the phone boasts a 720p, 4.7-inch IPS display that looks pretty great to our eyes. Beyond the screen, the most notable spec is probably the 2GB of RAM LG has thrown in to power both Android 4.0 and LG’s new “Optimus UI 3.0″ skin. Presumably that much RAM means the phone won’t need to make any multitasking compromises, but as LG tells us, “In the Korean market, 1GB of RAM is not enough for LTE phones.” The processor is just what we suspected, a Qualcomm S4 MSM8960 clocked at 1.5GHz, though LG claims that it offers significant power savings over the previous…

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May 16, 2012 0 comments Read More

Evangelion comes to Android: hands-on with Sharp’s NERV edition SH-06D

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Today at NTT Docomo’s summer lineup event we finally saw the company take the wraps off a working version of its NERV edition SH–06D Android handset, inspired by (and designed alongside) the upcoming third film in the Rebuild of Evangelion franchise. After using it for a few minutes on the show floor today, we can safely assure you that there’s nothing on the market remotely like it.

It’s impossible to pick the phone up without noticing the crazy skinning going on. Everything is colored orange, green, red, and black to match the readouts from the Magi computer system in the films. It definitely takes a minute to get used to, but once you know where to look for everything you’ll find a ton of glanceable information; everything…

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May 16, 2012 0 comments Read More

Fujitsu’s Arrows Z ISW13F: hands-on with Japan’s first Tegra 3 phone

fujitsu arrows isw13f lead 1020

We’ve been following Fujitsu’s quad-core Tegra 3 smartphone from Las Vegas to Barcelona, and today we’re finally getting a look at the finished project in Tokyo at AU’s summer launch event. Long story short, the Arrows Z ISW13F (as it will be known here) has a list of specs that handily makes it one of the most feature-packed devices we’ve seen in any market.

Aside from the 1.5GHz processor, the Android 4.0 phone features a big 4.6-inch 720p (1280 x 720) LCD display, 16GB of onboard storage (expandable up to 48GB with a microSD card), and its rear-facing camera can take 13.1-megapixel stills and 1080p video. Adding to the list, the phone features Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI output through its MicroUSB port, dustproofing, and…

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May 15, 2012 0 comments Read More

Kyocera’s ‘speaker-less’ Urbano Progresso hands-on: bone conduction meets Android 4.0

bone phone lead 1020

One of the most interesting products we saw at CES this year was a “Speaker-less Smartphone” prototype design from KDDI and Kyocera that relied on bone conduction rather than a typical smartphone speaker; a boon for the hearing impaired, and people that use their phones in loud places. Well, “Speaker-less Smartphone” has been re-named “Smart Sonic Receiver,” and today we were able to take a look at Kyocera’s first device using the technology, the Urbano Progresso.

First and foremost, the phone sounds great. As far as we can tell, the Smart Sonic Receiver is unchanged from when we saw it in January, and while we didn’t have an opportunity to test it in really challenging conditions, it was easy to hear in the noisy hotel ballroom. Like…

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May 15, 2012 0 comments Read More

Sharp Aquos Phone SL hands-on video

aquos phone sl

Japan has a lot of mobile users that aren’t quite ready to make the move up to a smartphone — many see the touch controls as intimidating or difficult to use. As such, there’s still a market for certain form factors that are all-but-dead in other parts of the world. Sharp has capitalized on this before with its Aquos Phone The Hybrid series of Android clamshells and sliders on SoftBank, and it’s unveiled a similar product today as part of KDDI / au’s summer 2012 lineup.

The Aquos Phone SL IS15SH is a portrait-orientation slider with a 3.7-inch qHD LCD screen, a 1.4GHz Snapdragon S2 processor, and an 8-megapixel camera, along with standard issue Japanese features like water and dust resistance, infrared, and 1seg TV. It’s 14.9mm thick…

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May 15, 2012 0 comments Read More

Sharp Aquos Phone Serie hands-on (video)

aquos phone serie

When we reviewed the Sharp Aquos Phone 104SH, we were struck by its Western feature set, sleek hardware, and attractively minimal Android 4.0 skin. The Aquos Phone Serie, announced at today’s KDDI / au summer lineup launch event, could not be further away from those ideals — it’s a hefty device with an array of Japan-specific features and “Feel_UX,” one of the most radical Ice Cream Sandwich skins we’ve ever seen.

Feel_UX basically does away with the traditional home screen in favor of a permanent app drawer. There aren’t any capacitive buttons, and no onscreen home button either until you actually jump into an app — pressing Home will then simply return you to the apps tray. Swiping left will bring you to a single scrolling page of…

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May 15, 2012 0 comments Read More

Seraku’s Smart Wash Basin is an Android mirror (hands-on video)

seraku mirror

We know, you can check the news and weather anywhere and everywhere on your smartphone, but what about when you’re washing your hands? Japanese company Seraku aims to make your network a little more ubiquitous with a prototype design for an Android-powered mirror. It uses RF proximity sensors to detect where your hands are placed so that you don’t have to smudge it all up in order to get check those sports scores, and the display unit here at Smartphone and Mobile Expo included a networked scale built into the floor. There’s also a meter that displays water flow and temperature information on the mirror. Overall, it reminds us a lot of the Smart Window prototype design we saw from Samsung at CES, although not as responsive or as…

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May 10, 2012 0 comments Read More

ZTE Nova V8000 coming to Cricket this summer with Android 4.0 (hands-on photos)

Gallery Photo: ZTE Nova V8000 hands-on photos

Amidst a relative dearth of newly announced handsets here at CTIA wireless 2012, ZTE is showing off a low-end Android 4.0 handset that the company says is headed to Cricket. ZTE calls it the “Nova 4.0 V8000,” but we would expect that when it launches Cricket will have some input on the final name. In any case, it has a 4-inch WVGA screen, 8-megapixel camera around back, 1GB of RAM and 4GB of ROM, and runs on a single-core Qualcomm S2 processor clocked at 1.4GHz. It’s a relatively small handset overall, but the hefty 1900mAh battery puts it on the thick side — however you can probably assume that the combination of the processor, small screen, and 3G radio will make for some pretty impressive battery life.

The spec card with the phone…

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May 10, 2012 0 comments Read More

New Bing calls on Facebook and Twitter to beat Google’s Search Plus Your World (hands-on)

“90 percent of people consult with a friend or expert before making a decision,” Microsoft says in promotional materials for the new Bing, announced today and rolling out over the next few weeks. The pitch sounds just like Google’s plan for Search Plus Your World, which peppers your search results page with content from Google+, the company’s social network. Microsoft’s doing a few things differently: it’s including social data from Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Blogger, and soon, LinkedIn, Quora, and Foursquare. The idea is that these social results will be inherently more relevant than Google’s simply by virtue of including more social networks, and in an unobtrusive manner.

With its “most significant” Bing update ever, is Microsoft the…

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May 10, 2012 0 comments Read More

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