CrunchGear

Fly Or Die: The LG Spectrum
Sony Unveils The Xperia Sola: Look, Mom! No Hands!
Forget NFC, This iPhone Case Combines All Your Credit Cards Into One
Clueless: RIM Releases The $120 BlackBerry PlayBook Mini Keyboard
LG Spectrum Review: Initial Impressions (Video)
RAM And CPU Clock Speed Confirmed For New iPad, But The Spec Is Still Dead

Posted: 13 Mar 2012 01:19 PM PDT

The Spectrum has been a busy little diva the last few days, strutting in and out of our NYC studio like she belongs there. So much in fact, that I’ve given her a gender and started to refer to her in gender-specific pronouns. A scary thought, to say the least.

Matt seems less perturbed by her presence, though I was (and still am) more than willing to duke it out with him over the value of this here phone.

Here’s the deal: The LG Spectrum has solid specs — 4G LTE, 4.5-inch 720p TrueHD display, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, and a solid little 8-megapixel camera all at a reasonable $200 price (on contract, of course). It also happens to look and feel cheap. This is my main beef with the phone, and to me it was a deal-breaker.

Matt, on the other hand, sees potential in the Spectrum, viewing the price-point and the specs as a winning combo (despite the fact that it’s likely to be the ugliest phone in the store). But is that enough to stake his word on it and give it a Fly?

Sony Unveils The Xperia Sola: Look, Mom! No Hands!

Posted: 13 Mar 2012 11:55 AM PDT

Sony’s been bringing it lately, with a trifecta of monosyllabic Xperia goodness at CES and MWC. I personally believe that a key ingredient in the secret sauce may be Sony’s ability to keep the new phones classy — the Xperia S, U, and P all got high marks from us in terms of build, feel in the hand, and overall aesthetic quality. But the newest member of the Xperia clan may have trouble living up to the standard; that is, if the reality of this “floating touch” thing is anything close to what I’m imagining.

The freshly announced Sony Xperia Sola is definitely trying to be a forward-thinking phone. Sony’s packed it full of fun technology like NFC-enabled Xperia SmartTags, a (relatively small, yet actually perfectly proportioned) 3.7-inch Reality Display with a Sony Mobile Bravia Engine, 3D surround sound audio tech, and access to the new Sony Entertainment Network. Oh, and we can’t forget that whole “floating touch” thing.

The idea is that you hover your finger above the screen, “so it acts like a moving cursor” without ever having to actually touch the screen. Then you can highlight and tap links to load the page. I’m not exactly sure about the potential of this, nor the need, but we’ll just wait and see.

The newest Xperia will come in white, red and black color flavors in Q2, and while it’ll ship with Android 2.3 Gingerbread, Sony says it should see ICS by summer. We have no word yet on pricing.

Forget NFC, This iPhone Case Combines All Your Credit Cards Into One

Posted: 13 Mar 2012 10:27 AM PDT

I have a love-hate relationship when it comes to all these newfangled mobile payment methods. Fan as I am of Google Wallet (and all the Wawa coffee I bought with the included $10 prepaid card), I can't help but want something more immediate, something more widely-usable.

The big sticking point that comes with the NFC-based payment systems that companies like Google and Visa love is they require buy-in from the people and companies you actually want to buy from. When your favorite mom-and-pop store can't be bothered to jump on the NFC bandwagon though, well, that's just a bummer.

And that's where the truly awesome iCache Geode comes into play.

In short, the Geode is a (rather handsome) iPhone case that lets you replace all of the loyalty and credit cards tucked away in your wallet in one fell swoop. Once you create an account in the companion app and load up some info, the Geode can display the barcode of any saved loyalty card on the small e-ink display on its rear end.

That by itself is pretty dang useful, but what really gets me is the rewritable card mounted just above it. Once your credit card information has been registered with the Geode, the included Geocard's mag strip can be rewritten on the fly, effectively turning it into whichever credit card you want it to be.

The fingerprint scanner along the case’s bottom lip, as you may have already guessed, is there to make sure no one is getting into your account without your express consent. iCache founder and CEO Jon Ramaci tells me that the scanner uses Live Finger Detection, so gruesome tricks like cutting off someone’s finger for access won’t fly.

I'll admit that I've lost my wallet more than a few times (only to find it in the another pair of pants or something, naturally), and the ordeal of digging up customer service numbers, cancelling cards, and waiting to get replacements in the mail is an unmitigated pain in the ass. iCache also aims to simplify that process by leaps and bounds for Geode users allowing them to store their encrypted payment information securely in the cloud. From there, it's a matter of going to a store and buying a new Geode (Ramaci tells me that more than a few companies have expressed interest in carrying the Geode), or ordering another from the Geode website. One quick re-authentification later and you're back in business.

Interestingly, the Geode you see here isn’t exactly the Geode that Oracle alum Ramaci and his team set out to create 3 years ago. Way back when, they wanted to create a standalone digital wallet, but eventually axed the idea when early feedback showed that people weren't too keen on carrying yet another hunk of plastic around everyday. Fortunately, most of the R&D that went into that original device carried over fairly easily to this mobile-friendly model.

Though Ramaci notes that iCache is in "good shape" from a funding perspective — no VCs involved, just friends, family, and high net worth individuals — it never hurts to have more cash in the coffers. To that end, iCache has recently kicked off a Kickstarter campaign, and to date the project has raised over $6,000 from 37 backers. As far as Ramaci is concerned though, it's not all about the cash, as that the crowdfunding platform is just as important as a mechanism for gaining feedback from potential consumers as it is for raising money.

Much as I love the concept, it isn't without its drawbacks. Let's say your Geode gets stolen — while the fingerprint scanner should prevent anyone from gaining access to your accounts, and it seems simple enough to get up and running again with a new Geode, the phone inside the case is still gone. Therein lies the rub with all-in-one solutions like this: it's a whole lot easier to steal (or lose) a phone/wallet hybrid than a phone and wallet separately. And while the Geode doesn't require merchants to invest in additional equipment, I can imagine more than a few cashiers looking at the Geocard in puzzlement before calling their managers over.

Still, if everything works according to plan, Geode backers should be in for a real treat by the time summer rolls around. According to Ramaci, the Geode will be ready to ship between May and June of this year for $199, though KickStarter backers can lock in their own Geode for $159. Sign me up!

Clueless: RIM Releases The $120 BlackBerry PlayBook Mini Keyboard

Posted: 13 Mar 2012 09:19 AM PDT

Research In Motion announced the PlayBook 17 months ago. Then, eleven months ago, the company actually launched the product. It took them another 10 months to finally bring a native email and messaging app to the product. Now, almost a full year after the product hit stores, RIM is releasing a keyboard folio case for the struggling tablet. Oh, and it costs $120.

I’m fully convinced Research in Motion is stuck in some sort of time warp where hours equal days and days equal months. It’s the only logical explanation regarding the company’s product release cycle. That or RIM is run by ignorant executives that spend more time on the golf course than in the office. Maybe both.

The Playbook is a quality product ruined by an incompetent company. It feels great in the hand and the OS is actually pretty slick. But RIM clearly didn’t throw the proper resources behind the product’s development. It should have launched with apps that users expect from a BlackBerry device: email, messaging and calendar. Instead, RIM took its merry time to develop these key applications and just recently pushed them to the device. The tablet’s launch could have also benefited from a large offering of accessories including the keyboard folio that was just announced. It’s not like the idea of a keyboard case is novel. These sort of cases were around back when RIM announced the Playbook in 2010.

I’m sure the new keyboard case works well. RIM makes quality, but often overpriced, hardware. The company just doesn’t know how to launch them in a timely manner.

LG Spectrum Review: Initial Impressions (Video)

Posted: 13 Mar 2012 07:02 AM PDT

Let me just start by saying that so far, I’m not a fan. But, these are just initial impressions so we’ll see how my relationship with the Spectrum progresses over time.

Sure, the LG Spectrum has a stunning 4.5-inch 720p display, Verizon 4G LTE, and all the innards of what could be a great smartphone. But so far I’m not ready to call it a great smartphone.

There are two very fundamental issues that I have with the Spectrum. The first is that it feels awful and plastic-y in the hand. It’s a pretty sizeable phone, but has no weight to back up a premium feel. And even worse, the battery door (which comprises the majority of the phone) is made of this weak, patterned plastic. It scratches easily, doesn’t take prints well, and shines in all the wrong ways.

The second major issue I have with the Spectrum is that LG UI is awful, both aesthetically and in use. Though I’m told by LG that it’s a light overlay, it clearly slows down the system. Then let’s add to that the fact that the UI doesn’t add anything in terms of design or attention to detail. At least in my own opinion, everything’s a bit too bubbly and round for my tastes. I do like that apps are categorized by default, though.

And if we’re talking about attention to detail, I also take issue with the fact that both of the camera lenses (front and back) aren’t centered within the hole they peek through.

On the other hand, you can’t argue with that display. Seriously, it’s one of the best I’ve seen in a long time with regards to true colors and pixel density (326 ppi), so if you’re a mobile video kind of person the Spectrum may very well find a place in your heart.

We’ll get into performance and battery life later on in the review process, but for now the Spectrum has an uphill battle on its hands. I’d need to see some killer testing and slap a case on this bad boy before I could write anything glowing, but I’ve backtracked before after initial impressions, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

RAM And CPU Clock Speed Confirmed For New iPad, But The Spec Is Still Dead

Posted: 13 Mar 2012 06:02 AM PDT

Good news, everyone! It’s confirmed that the new iPad is indeed slightly “faster” than the iPad 2. Early benchmarks of the new iPad show that the actual clock speed of the A5X SoC is still set at 1GHz, the same speed as the iPad2. But the new model also rocks 1GB of RAM, which should make for a smoother and faster experience. Plus, as Apple stated in the announcement keynote, the A5X rocks a quad-core graphics chip for better graphic performance.

Apple rarely talks nerd-level specs. The company would much rather talk about marketable improvements based on user experience — you know, general arbitrary nonsense. That’s why Tim Cook & Co. just glazed over the technical improvements during the new iPad’s launch and instead focused on new features. It was mentioned that the new tablet has an updated A5X SoC but the actual clock speed and amount of RAM was never mentioned. In many ways Apple’s method is right. The spec is dead — but just for Apple. Listing specs is only important when comparing competing products. There is no direct competitor to the iPad.

Android tablets are locked in a sort of spec race. Slightly different hardware is the only differentiating factor between Android tablets since they all run the same OS and have the same form factor. But there is only one iOS tablet out there: the iPad. Comparing the specs between an iOS and Android device is a fool’s affair. It only matters in fanboy flame wars.

Specs like clock speed and RAM for iOS hardware should only really matter to developers planning product road maps — not that they should be coding just for the new hardware. Smart developers will use this information to plan future products but continue to optimize their apps to work on a broad number of devices instead of limiting themselves to the newest model.

You’ll never see a post-PC era Apple video ad running through a list of specs or acronyms. The company doesn’t need to get into a pissing match. Apple would rather sell you on fun new features than boring new hardware. Saturday Night Live got it right.

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