Review: HTC HD7 with WP7 Mango
Posted Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 10:30 pm by Jason Cartwright![HTC HD7 Mango[5]](http://techau.tv/blog/images/Review_9EC0/HTC-HD7-Mango5.jpg "HTC HD7 Mango[5]")
The WP7.5 update is said to contain more than 500 new features, despite asking repeatedly, the full list of these features apparently does not exist. The good news is that Mango is a massive leap forward for Windows Phone, adding many of the features currently available on iOS and Android.
Until the new Mango devices arrive, every current Windows Phone is receiving the Mango update. One such device is the HTC HD7, one of the last Windows Phones to arrive, we take a look at how it stacks up after the update.
WP7.5 Mango
One of the most unique features of WP7 is live tiles. These live tiles have been significantly enhanced with Mango, adding the ability for parts of applications to be pinned to the home screen. Combined with the quick-resume of mango applications, this can provide a very quick mechanism to get to the information you require.
This is the realisation of Microsoft’s plan to get in and get out. We don’t use phones for the sake of using phones, we use them to get stuff done. Allowing users to achieve what they need to, as fast as possible is an admirable goal.
Camera improvements in Mango come with one important change. The camera settings actually get saved. While Microsoft tried to say the lack of this option in NoDo was ‘by design’, they thankfully listened to reason and added this in Mango. Photos can now be taken, not only with the dedicated camera button, but with a tap of the screen, after autofocus works it’s magic, the shutter fires.
Multitasking is really single tasking. Something all modern smart phone OS’s are guilty of listing multi-tasking as a feature, when in reality, you can only do a single task at any one time. At best you can play some music in the background while running another app, but this hardly qualifies as multitasking as well know it from the desktop. Naturally with limited screen real estate, it would be tricky to pull off 2 apps on-screen at once, I just wish they’d call it what it really is.. fast app switching.
Changing between apps can be done by holding down the home back button, then a list of the most recent apps is displayed. While the back button is great, it’s clearly a lot faster to jump back 2 or 3 apps using this technique, than using back multiple times. As you spend time with Mango this becomes very natural, but given it’s such a common task, it could be improved by reducing the length of time required to activate it.
Bing Search has some great new features in Mango. Bing Scout is your go-to assistant when in a new town. It fires up location services to find places to Eat+drink, activities to See+Do and Shops nearby. The other new Search button feature is Bing Vision. This bypasses the need for a dedicated QR or Microsoft Tag app, it can also scan text. This text can then be translated into other languages, another useful travel feature.
Hardware
The HD7 has a large 4.3” display which by comparison to other phones is on the upper end of the scale. The screen may appear good quality at first glance, but when scrolling, there’s a strange issue with the display of text. Characters appear really low quality, which actually became a real issue for me.
Watching video playback on the HD7’s large screen is a good experience. To assist extended viewing, HTC included a kickstand on the back on the phone. Unfortunately the idea is better than the execution. The phone is very unstable when using the kickstand and likely to fall over when used in real life situations like on an airplane tray table. The kickstand is also only usable in landscape mode. This gets to a wider issue with Windows Phone and the lack of a standard dock position which prevents accessory manufacturers to build for WP7.
The HD7 has a 5 Megapixel camera that performs double-duty as a 720p video recorder. The quality of both are solid, but don’t come close to the industry leading iPhone 4. With the iPhone 4S on the way with an even better camera, let’s hope the next HTC WP7 device makes improvements to the camera.
The phone itself has solid build construction and feels good in the hand. You can check the spec sheet, but when it comes to the feeling of weight, the HD7 is indistinguishable from the iPhone 4, if anything, it’s a fraction lighter.
When it comes to performance, the speed of the HD7 is impressive, although like improvements in Windows, Windows Phone is getting more efficient with each release. Windows Phone is actually pretty efficient, performing will on single-core processor, year old devices.
Gallery
Overall
When it comes down to it, the HD7 is a solid performer, made better by Mango. The text scrolling issue is really frustrating, but may be fixable in a software patch. At this point it’s unclear how many more updates Windows Phone launch devices will receive. Microsoft committed to upgrade all to Mango, but Tango may be a different story.
As for competition, I’m also running WP7.5 on a Samsung Omnia 7, which essentially the same on both devices. There’s a few HTC apps vs Samsung apps, but these shouldn’t influence anyone to choose one WP7 device over the other.
The HTC HD7 is the best part of a year old, so it’s hard to recommend, as the release of new Mango devices is only weeks away. If your sold on the idea of your next phone running WP7, then hold off and wait for the next generation. WP7 Mango addresses many of the missing features expected from a modern mobile OS. Windows Phone 7.5 can now stand proud as a viable competitor to Android or iOS.
More information @ HTC.
Review: Forza Motorsport 4
Posted Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 5:00 pm by Jason Cartwright
The Forza Motorsport series began way back in 2005. but now in 2011 it’s time for the 4th edition. I’ve been lucky enough to have been playing the game for the past week under embargo.. but that just ended ! So strap yourself in for the review.
The home screen is made up of 5 sections, Play Career, Community, Autovista, Free Play and Marketplace, in the demo, you only had access to 2 of these, so below we’ll take a look at each one.
Career
Finally a game that recognises your commitment to the series ! After firing up Forza 4, it identified the saved game from Forza 3 sitting on the same hard drive. The game prompted me to import the data, naturally I did which resulted in early unlocks of cars and a badge (Level 50, VIP). Unfortunately despite your previous experience, your career will still start using slow class F cars.
Track locations are now visualised with the track selection panning over a map of the world. This contextualisation works remarkably well compared with selecting from a list. The thought process involved in creating this is pretty impressive, there’s even made up tracks still have locations on the map.
The number of races in Forza 4 is simply astonishing. With some many track and race variants, there are hundreds of events to race. If you want value for money, this game will satisfy your cravings, there’s no 10 hour FPS here, hours required are measured in 3 figures.
Rival events is another mode that places your times against the best in the world. Rival challenges come in many forms including hot laps, drifting, time attack, track days, top gear and Autocross. These game modes make for a nice break from hours of standard circuit racing. Autocross races can contain objectives like knocking over a specified number of Pins, or driving slalom between Barrels around the track.
Community
If there wasn’t already enough places for you to sink time into, racing online is a massive part of Forza. It’s been a little difficult to test during the pre-release phase as there’s only a select few with early access. This section will blow up on release day. Naturally you can join or create an almost infinite number of race modes with players across the globe.
An important new addition in Forza 4 is the ability to use Clubs. Naturally Motorsport communities online want to form group and race competitively with others in the game. Forza 4 lets you do that by creating Clubs. A really nice feature is that you can share your cars with the group. This means someone entering the game for the first time could try a heavily customised, specked out ride. A great idea and well executed.
You may be used to comparing your best times with Xbox Live friends, or the top leaderboards, but now you can compare with club members as well. This team system is something we’ve seen many games try, but rarely done well.
There is still the same Auction House for selling cars and Store Front for selling graphics and vehicle setups – sadly not much has changed here from Forza 3.
Autovista
25 amazingly detailed cars are on display for you to investigate. Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear fame also gives his dry humoured run down of each. To unlock a car for Autovista, you need to select it and complete a challenge. While it may seem a fair bit of effort just to look at a car, I can assure you, it’s completely worth it. My personal favourite is pressing X to ‘explode’ the car, opening every door, bonnet, boot and wing available.
You can even get inside the car to get a run down of the dash and interior, which looks just as detailed as the exterior. Clicking on the steering wheel will show off the start process, complete with gauges, displays and the engine revs. Unfortunately you don’t get to control the revs yourself, you need to drive the car for that.
There’s also Kinect integration in this mode, this allows users to step left and right to move around the car. This does have it’s issues, at times it can be jerky and you end up doing things you didn’t intend like exiting the car when you meant to inspect something.
Free Play
Brand new in this version is the ability for two players in split screen to use in-car view. Some how those wizards at Turn 10 Studios managed to extract some more horse power out of the 5+ year old Xbox 360 and get this to work. Clearly the momentum in multiplayer gaming is to go online, but there are still circumstances when you want to race a friend in the same room.
There’s also Quick Race and Hot Lap sections in Free Play, great if you want to break from serious racing and want to test the damage engine at 300km/h into a wall.
Marketplace
Apparently where you can get ‘the latest content’ for Forza 4, Marketplace is basically a front end to DLC. What is promising is the multiplayer game mode currently lists ‘soccer’ but is unavailable. This famous Top Gear soccer match should be available at launch.
In Autovista, the 2012 BMW M5 is also tagged as DLC and not yet available, this suggests Turn 10 will release additional Autovista cars overtime for you to drool at while emptying your wallet.
Marketplace introduces the notion of Tokens. Buying Car Tokens with Microsoft Points (real money) allows you to buy any car in the game. So if you’re time poor and bank rich, then you can buy your way to the best rides.
Cars
The cars in this game look fantastic, highly detailed both inside and out. This is the first game I’ve played (and maybe ever) to feature moving components based on physics. The Lexus LFA for example has a rear wing that opens at high speed to keep it glued to the road. The same is true of the super fast Bugatti Veyron, which also uses the pop-up wing for aggressive braking, like a parachute on a dragster.
Upgrading your car and the modification system works essentially the same as Forza 3. There is one key difference – loyalty discounts can be achieved by winning races with a certain manufacturer. Discounts on part upgrades range up to 100%. Yep, free upgrades !
I mentioned earlier the extra detail in the car models. This extra level of detail even extends to flames shooting out the exhaust when unburnt fuel reaches the hot exhaust tip and combines with oxygen. These guys have thought of everything. Those for an eye for detail will also appreciate the reflections in the car bonnet are now smooth as silk. Incredibly low quality in the last version, this improvement likely comes as a result of their new lighting engine.
Car handling has been improved with 3 options available. Assisted where the computer really wants to help, this mode is for beginners only. Standard which actually makes it easy to drift without an aggressive snap back. The last is Simulation where real driving physics are applied.. this is the hardest and really for the most advanced racing drivers. If you have a steering wheel and pedals, this is the option for you.
V8 Supercars
Australian motorsport fans will be keen to know the evolutions with V8 Supercars in the Forza franchise. While there is no Bathurst or any Australian tracks for that matter, there is an update in regards to V8 Supercars included in Forza 4. So we’ve gone from 4 Fords and 4 Holdens, to 5 of each. Not exactly the whole field we were were hoping for. Expect DLC or community developed liveries for other teams.
| Ford | Holden |
| #19 Mother Energy Racing Team FG Falcon #5 Ford Performance Racing FG Falcon #9 SP Tools Racing FG Falcon #17 Dick Johnson Racing Team FG Falcon #4 Irwin Racing FG Falcon |
#1 Toll Holden Racing Team Commodore VE #11 Pepsi Max Crew Commodore VE #33 Fujitsu Racing GRM Commodore VE #88 Team Vodafone Commodore VE #8 Team BOC Commodore VE |
Damage
One of my biggest criticisms of Grand Turismo 5 was the lack of damage. Now apparently it does have damage, but so far in most players will never see it. I never understood that. Forza 4’s damage engine has been upgraded significantly and damage applies only to the area impacted. Sideswiping another car may result in scratches along the front or rear guard, not the simple switching of a ‘damaged’ texture for the entire side of the car. In simulation mode there’s also tyre wear, engine damage and fuel to worry about for that real driving simulation.
Kinect Integration
The hardcore Forza fans had been concerned when the K word was mention in relation to their beloved realistic driving sim. While it’s amazing technology packed into a small box, it can create child-like or basic experiences, the exact opposite of what ‘real’ drivers want.
Good news. The use of Kinect in Forza 4 is completely optional, so if you don’t have or want to use it, you don’t need to. The cover art for the game uses the term ‘Enhanced with Kinect’ and essentially that’s true. While racing, Kinect is used for head / upper-body movement. This translates what you would typically use the left thumb stick for, looking left or right out windows. Sure it may be to check your blind spots, but I found it most useful for looking out the side mirror while drifting.
Forza 4 Trailer
Overall
What Turn 10 Studios has created here is without a doubt the best racing game available today. With stunning car models, a realistic physics and lighting engine, Forza 4 is now the benchmark for racing games. It was cute that GT5 had a at try, but it has seriously been left behind.
Whether your a dedicated racing fan or a complete newby, you will enjoy Forza 4. Advanced Forza 3 fans may find the Career progression a little slow, but that’s a pretty mild complaint. The achievements come thick and fast in the first few hours of the game, these really should have been distributed more evenly over the hours required to complete the game. Turn 10 clearly recognise the number of people willing to commit the time to complete is minimal, so front load to provide a sense of achievement.
My biggest complaint is the lack of new tracks in Forza 4, clearly a very expensive thing to build. Turn 10 chose only to add a couple of new tracks to the game and enhance the existing ones. This game would have been made just that much better had it included an Australian track like Bathurst. There is after all V8 Supercars in the game, but no tracks that they actually race on in real life.
Unfortunately the most realistic driving game is missing something realistic.. weather. There is still no rain, hail or snow. Sure there is sunrise and sunset skies that look amazing, but this is a big omission from the experience. Looks like we have to wait for the horsepower in the next Xbox and Forza 5 for that one.
Forza 4 is available in Australia on October 13th and exclusive to the Xbox 360. If your into driving at all, I strongly suggest picking this one up. Just remember this is more of the same great game with some nice improvements, not an revolution.
More @ ForzaMotorsport.net
Review: Wallabies Rugby Challenge
Posted Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 10:06 pm by Jason Cartwright
Rugby Union is big in NSW, but when our Aussies play internationally, it’s something we can all get behind. Wallabies Rugby Challenge has exclusive rights to the Australia and New Zealand teams, setting up the ultimate challenge for the most passionate Union fans from either side of the Tasman.
The 2011 Rugby World Cup is taking place right now in New Zealand, so this timely release should serve fans well. The game is available now in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa (the three biggest Rugby countries) and scheduled for release for the rest of the world on October 14th.
The game features Rugby legend Jonah Lomu and will actually sell under that name Worldwide. The same game in New Zealand is marketed towards All Black Fans. While this may be a costly production exercise, targeting a game to an audience makes a lot of sense and will likely result in higher sales. Just be sure to look for the right title in your region.
Keep in mind there will likely be a zero-day patch if you decide to pick up the game, with developers Sidhe addressing early feedback. You can see a fairly extensive list of notes for the update on the official site.
Graphics
With any action game, when your fully immersed in gameplay, the graphics fade away and you enjoy the experience. On-field the graphics are pretty decent with detailed textures, good crowds and great environments. There is however an issue with the graphical representation of players during the team selection. Players faces suffer from heavy aliasing making them look almost cartoonish rather than photographic.
During matches in the rain, there’s no visual impact on player clothing and cloth simulations as a result of them being wet. With so many players needing to be rendered on the field, this would be a challenging task.
Gameplay
Your mileage with an intricate sport like this will vary based on your experience and knowledge of the game. Fortunately for those less familiar with the code, the game contains a fairly extensive tutorial mode. I strongly advise newbies to run through this before attempting a real match.
There’s a number of game modes including Tutorial Mode, Quick Match, Competition Mode, and multi-year Career Mode for those with seriously too much time on your hands. Locally you can play up to 4 people (2 co-op), but online you can join teams of 8.
At times this game suffers from an issue with camera movement. Switching the 180 degrees from offense and to defense, is one example of where it could have been done in a smoother, less disorienting way.
Check out the video below to see Lomu in a motion capture suits during the development of the game.
Price & Availability
While this review is based on the Xbox 360 version, Wallabies Rugby Challenge is also available on PS3 and PC via Steam. The best price for the game currently is A$89 from JB HiFi, but depending on the retailer you choose it could be $10-$20 more.
Game currently have a special on Rugby World Cup 2011 making the price difference another strike against the game.
Overall
Rugby Union fans will be happy with this game, despite some minor issues. The publishers Tru Blu Entertainment would be smart to continue to service community feedback with patches. This game’s biggest issue isn’t bugs, it is competition. While Wallabies Rugby Challenge is a pretty decent offering you can have a lot of fun with, I suspect most cash strapped gamers will choose Rugby World Cup 2011. While I haven’t reviewed that title, my advice as always is to read and compare multiple reviews so you get the most out of your hard earned (or Centrelink).
The Rugby World Cup only comes around once every 4 years, so its great to see fans having a number of options to choose from. I wish the same could be said about all sports, take V8 Supercars as an example, there hasn’t been a game this generation of consoles.
More information @ rugbychallengegame.com
Hands-on with Facebook Timeline
Posted Friday, September 23, 2011 at 5:28 am by Jason Cartwright
At the end of the F8 keynote, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook developers would get access to the Timeline beta today. Well true to his word, developers can indeed opt-in to the beta. One important note, during the beta phase, only other developers will see your new Timeline, normal users will see your traditional profile page.
If you have ever build an application at http://developers.facebook.com then you should now have access. I have had a strange issue in that viewing it on this laptop works, but logging in on the PC, still shows the old profile even after clearing the cache.
With that out of the way, is the new Timeline something that you want ? Answer, Yes. After spending a few minutes with it, Timeline actually makes a lot of sense. I could absolutely see myself going back through my digital photo library and completing my timeline. I started shooting digital photos in 2002 with a 4 Megapixel Kodak D4900, yet my Facebook photos only start in 2007.
The banner image at the top of your profile page is known as a Cover. You can upload a new photo or choose from an existing photo from any of your photo galleries. This makes the process of changing it very simple. To those people and services that selected the 5 profile pics at the top of your profile, sorry but they are gone.
Facebook prompts you to complete your timeline based on the information you have already completed in your profile. Take my high school for example. If you want to take it to the extreme you can add a photo at birth.
Facebook Friends, Likes, Places other social interactions are are all displayed in sections of the new dual-pane Timeline view. Having dual columns combined with the new photo tiles for albums, makes displaying a lot of information in a relatively small space. To navigate this mass of information, you use the navigation on the right to drill down not only in years, but months as well.
It is now clear that Facebook just made a massive change. Not only is it a Social Networking service, but with Timeline, it just became an archive of your life. I feel sorry for the service Memolane, the 800 pound gorilla just stomped all over you. Sure Memolane supports more than just Facebook activity, but for most users, think the benefits of sharing and archiving your life on Facebook will be enough.
If your not a developer and want to see the new Timeline ‘in action’, you can at least get a demo at https://facebook.com/about/timeline
Review: Logitech Z906 5.1 Speaker System
Posted Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 2:41 pm by Bryce Wilson
Movies, games, music and other assorted media are only as enjoyable as they sound. I remember the night and day transition when I went from a 2.1 system to my first 5.1 surround sound system – it was amazing, to say the least.
Movies came to life in new ways I could never imagine, games became more immersive and enjoyable and my music took a new lease on life through the clearer speakers. Well Logitech is here with the Z906, an impressive and powerful creation boasting a number of inputs that make it just as effective in an AV environment or hooked up to your PC. Thanks to its THX certification from Star Wars big man (Pun intended) George Lucas, you know you’re getting great standards for movie playback.
The 500 watt system comes packaged well, as you can see in the unboxing video, and looks quite stylish amongst a modern interior. The satellites all look similar in their design, sporting rugged and enduring cases, and the front grills are more durable than the cotton ones on the x530′s. The incredibly sturdy units feature support for wall mounting and the audio levels are controlled by a central control unit. It’s a great addition and allows you to change inputs, sound levels, sound fields and features a power and mute button, too.
The face of the control unit is lit with various orange LEDs that indicate everything from volume level to the selected sound field. When you scroll the volume knob the LEDs around the edge light up in accordance, then dim back down into the dark. It’s great for night time use and has never felt intruding or clunky. You’re also able to adjust the sound fields from Stereo 3D, Stereo 4.1 and Stereo 2.1, each playing the sound signal through different satellites.
The side firing 165 watt beast of a subwoofer is compact, aesthetically pleasing and features an eight inch driver. I fit it snugly away under my desk and almost forgot it was there at one point. As soon as you fire up a movie or game though you’re quickly reminded that the bass is not something to play around with. The rear of the subwoofer is swathed in input locations including three digital audio inputs (one coaxial and two optical), the six-channel direct input for PCs, an analogue RCA stereo input and a 3.5mm for MP3 players and the like.
Connecting the supplied satellites is as simple as running the provided speaker wire and plugging it into each of the spring clip terminals on the back of the subwoofer. Installation is quick, simple, and above all else easy. My only major gripe is the omission of HDMI input or HD audio decoding. This removes a major compatibility with Blu-ray players, something that will definitely encourage people to look at other cost effect systems. The speakers run at a frequency range of 35hz to 20khz, and are powered by the three inch driver inside each unit.
The proof is in the pudding, as they say, so after installing the system I got to testing it out across a number of different formats. My first port of call was gaming, as that’s a major hobby of mine. I booted up Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad and was immediately blown away. The body and depth that the Z906′s affords is surpassed by no other speakers I’ve heard, and I was literally jumping in my chair thanks to the impressive bass rendered during explosions. The machine gun fire sounds authentic and I was hearing every sound on a level of detail I’d never encountered.
In amongst all the explosions, gunfire, cussing and background noise I was still able to hear a surprising amount of detail. The sound was crisp, perky and above all else definitely miles ahead of things I’d heard on TV and through my old speaker system. Secondly I fired up a copy of Avatar, perhaps one of the most visually impressive films of all time that also features an impressive audio mix. Distant animal cries, ambient sounds and other things poked through, things I’d never heard or detected before. Bass performance during action scenes was impressive and I felt it never washed or drowned out the important sounds coming from the satellites themselves.
Even my housemate was astounded by the quality of the sound, at one point commenting it actually sounded like my room was a rainforest. It sounds zany, but this compact system is one of the best cost to performance systems on the market. The Z906 is impressive, to say the least.
The sound has depth, packs a significant punch when it needs to and looks an absolute treat. Coupled with the huge range of inputs, robust design and the perfect center control console and you have one of the best all-in-one releases in years. The lack of HDMI is disappointing and almost a deal breaker that really does undermine the Z906′s status as the only home entertainment hub you could ever need.
For more information head to Logitech.
SSD Shakedown: OCZ Vertex 2 vs OCZ Vertex 3 vs Crucial M4
Posted Monday, September 12, 2011 at 8:23 pm by Bryce Wilson
When it comes to upgrading something in your PC for the most noticeable performance gains, the SSD is probably the best place to start. Traditional platter based hard drives have served the PC masses for years now, but with cheaper production costs and huge technology investments, flash storage is readily becoming the way of the data storage future.
Today techAU puts three consumer Solid State Drives onto the testing bench to find out which offer the biggest gains, and which offers you the best bang for your buck.
Testing Rig:
Motherboard: ASUS M4A89GTD PRO USB3
CPU: AMD Phenom x4 955 Black Edition @ 3.8Ghz
RAM: 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz G-Skill Ripjaws X (9-9-9-24)
GPU: GTX 580 (1.5GB)
Note: All drives were benchmarked as is, out of the box.
Testing Programs:
AS SSD – 1.6.4237.30508
ATTO Disk Benchmark – 2.47
HD Tune Pro – 4.61
CrystalDiskMark – 3.0.1
Competing alongside each other today we have the 60GB OCZ Vertex 2, a small sized drive with an affordable price. The 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS drive, a mid-level drive with blistering random performance. And finally we have the 256GB Crucial m4 SSD, one of the most powerful SSD’s on the market offering blazing speeds and large space.
All three drives were wiped before having Windows 7 64 bit install on them. We then took the drives through a series of tests and benchmarks using common tools, the data and results of which have been provided below for review.
