Infinity Blade

Available on: iOS
Reviewed on: iPad
Price: $5.99

Introduction:

Infinity Blade has been touted as the most graphically advanced game on the iOS platform. The moment the iPad 2 was launched, id Software (of Doom fame), the developers of Infinity Blade, released a new update for the game optimizing it for Apple's shiny new hardware. Its graphical prowess is so well recognized that many technology blogs have used Infinity Blade as a benchmark to test the graphical performance of the iPad. But here we want check if Infinity Blade is only about infinite graphical opportunities or if it's more than a test bed for tech geeks.

Gameplay:

Infinity Blade has a pretty straightforward story - the player is a rogue warrior who wants to defeat an evil king in an imaginary land and has to battle a horde of monsters en route to the palace. There is a catch to all this but we'll let you experience that on your own. Some things are best left untold.

Graphically, it is one of the most beautiful games on the iOS platform and on the iPad 2only two games - Dead Space HD and Real Racing 2 HD - can compete with Infinity Blade. Thanks to the Unreal engine, the shader models are really detailed and it really brings out the raw horsepower of the iPad2 to the fore (even though on the original iPad its quite a looker and is easily the best looking game on the older hardware). The detailing on the armor of the lead protagonist looks very life like, but in comparison to the original iPad the 9x performance boost of the iPad 2 is noticeable.

For gameplay, id Software has come up with a very intuitive swiping interface. Gameplay-wise, it combines elements of a beat em' up and a RPG (role playing game). The player controls a protagonist who wields a sword, a shield and has some magical powers at his disposal. All these items can be constantly upgraded which really makes the player power while at the same time powering up in the mold of the RPG. The swiping for controlling the sword is really addictive and works seamlessly, reminding this reviewer of Ryu Hayabusa from the Ninja Gaiden franchise.

Verdict:

Infinity Blade has been one of the most satisfying gaming experiences on the iOS platform. Apart from providing a console-like graphical quality, it provides gamers with a very addictive experience by combining elements of a Role Playing Game and a Beat em' up at the same time. Unfortunately it fails to deliver a satisfying story line but then again the iOS platform caters to a casual gaming audience rather than some of those hardcore gamers. At $5.99 it's a tad expensive because after a point the gameplay becomes repetitive.

Rating: 3.7
Usability - 4.0
Price - 2.5
Wow factor - 4.5 

Review: Evernote

Available on: iOS, Android, Palm OS, and Windows Phone 7
Reviewed on: iPad
Price: Free

Introduction:

Are you a working journalist or an on the go professional? Do you have a penchant for jotting down everything you hear? Don't fret, just get Evernote. Evernote is touted as the ultimate note-taking application and is available on 13 different platforms (iOS and Android to begin with). You'll never use a pen again.

Usability:

When the iPhone came in, Evernote already had a reputation to protect. It made its name on the basis of its Windows and Mac apps, which have been ably supplemented by its web-based service. Now, Evernote has an app on almost each and every platform barring Nokia's aged Symbian OS.

To begin with Evernote, welcomes us with its home page, which is neatly divided into five panes, namely- All Notes, NoteBooks, Tags, Places and Searches. On the top left corner we have a search bar.

As far note making could the interface could not be simpler. We get the option to input Title names for the particular note, besides this we can also tag our notes so that searching becomes a painless process. But what makes Evernote worth the hype is the fact that whatever we jot down gets almost instantaneously synced to the cloud and to all our other Evernote apps. For instance, if we write a note on our iPad it will pop up on our Mac Evernote, our Android Evernote, on Evernote.com and so on. This is very handy indeed, as the problem of transferring documents from one device to the other has been eliminated. We tested this functionality thoroughly - heck, we wrote this review using Evernote on the iPad.

Another facet of the app is that we can click photos and record sound clips from right within the note-taking interface. This means that we can take critical product shots if attending a product launch event, or record short sound clips if typing becomes a chore. We can even attach images from our gallery in our notes. If you think this is good then get this - we can even post our content on Twitter, Facebook or use good old Email. Google Plus is not yet supported but the way the big G is evolving in social media we believe it's just a matter of time before Google Plus gets integrated in Evernote.

Geo tagging is also enabled so we can tag our notes using Google maps. So if a note has been written in say, Dubai, then the in-built Google maps will show a tiny marker.

But we've saved the best for the last. Evernote has the capability to search for text in your images too, and it makes those words searchable. This is a really fascinating functionality. For instance if we take a picture of a pair of Bose Headphones that shows the logo, we can actually type Bose in the search index and Evernote will automatically detect the 'Bose' text in the image.While this technology is quite similar to Optical Chapter Recognition (OCR), it works quite differently.

Evernote is available for free and will allow 50MB of data storage per month. If that is not enough for you, then one can opt for the yearly $45 plan which offers up-to 500Mb of data storage per month. While we know Evernote is meant for primarily text based content we would appreciate a bit more memory in the free app. Come on, Evernote! Dropbox offers us 2GB of free data and 50MB per month is not even 700MB in a year.

Another gripe we have with the iPad variant is the fact that Evernote has eliminated the nifty Web clipping tool found on the desktop apps. The Web clipping tool allows you to chop small bits of web pages and save them in your Evernote notes. The addition of this feature would have truly made the app flawless. Those who have used it before will know its utility; those who have not will never ever know what they are missing.

Verdict:

It is by far the most complete note-taking application on any of the mobile platforms considering it's available on almost all mobile platforms. It is addictive, very handy and very well designed - ideal for a writer or a journalist, but has the potential to change many more lives.

Synchronization with the cloud is also flawless making it even more useful if a person owns multiple devices and, best of all, its free, unless you are a scribbling machine which would make the paid data options logical. Considering the amount of data offered we believe Evernote is being a tad stingy but we are guessing not many will complain!



Usability -4.5
Price -4.5
Wow factor -4

Zite - Your Customized Magazine

Available on: iOS

Reviewed on: iPad

Price: Free

Introduction:

If you've been hankering for a magazine with content customized to your preferences, get Zite.  Zite is a social feed aggregator and pulls customized content from one's own feeds and popular web based publications. It is very similar to Flipboard, which was named Apple's app of the year but there are many subtle differences.

Usability:

The user interface of Zite is reminiscent of a print publication. The whole design of the magazine is very neatly organized. While starting up, the app asked us to sync our Twitter and Google reader feeds. We were then diverted to a page with a whole host of options for customizing content. For example we could choose feeds exclusively related to technology. We could even further micro manage the feeds by selecting particular brands such as Google, Apple and Microsoft, so as to be able to see stories only related to those brands.

An impressive feature on Zite is that it displays all the content in its own windows. There are some exceptions, such as NYT related feeds, which open in a browser window similar to Flipboard. This gives the app an inherent print publication feel. This particular feature lends the app a very unique flavour but at the same time we believe it's a big copyright law no-no. Zite is already facing some flak from content generators for doing this.

The app also natively plays YouTube video but sometimes struggles with HTML 5 based content.

But the game-changer is Zite's learning feature. If the user likes a particular article, the app adapts and offers similar content. But this is a double edged sword as it may limit your reading.

Similar to other information aggregators, Zite provides the option to post articles the user likes on Twitter, Facebook, Instapaper, and Delicious. It also lets content be emailed to other.

This may sound very picky, but a cool page turning animation, like Flipboard's, would have been nice. Maybe Zite could go a step further in the next version and add an iBooks like animation.

Verdict:

As far as content aggregators go, Zite is right up there with Flipboard and Pulse, but what differentiates it from these apps is its ability to adapt to the reading habits of the user. It also provides greater customization options over the content viewed in comparison to Flipboard and Pulse. The only gripe might be the omission of a cool page turning animation. But perhaps that's asking for too much considering we get all this for free?

Rating - 4.5                                                                                                                        

Usability - 4

Price - 5

Wow factor - 4

Google to acquire Motorola Mobility

Google said on Monday that it has agreed to acquire Motorola Mobility, the cellphone handset maker, for $12.5 billion.

The acquisition is the company's largest, and would turn Google, which makes the Android mobile operating system, into a full-fledged cellphone manufacturer in direct competition with Apple.

It is certain to attract significant antitrust scrutiny. The Federal Trade Commission is already investigating Google's dominance in several areas of its business.

Google said that Android, which the company gives away to cellphone manufacturers, would continue to remain an open system, but that Google would also become a competitor to those partners, like Samsung and HTC.

"Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers," Google's chief executive, Larry Page, wrote in a company blog post.

The price is a 63 percent premium to the closing price of Motorola shares Friday. Google said it expects the acquisition to close by the end of the year or the beginning of next year.

HP cuts tablet price in bid to challenge iPad

US technology giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) on Thursday cut the price of its freshly-launched TouchPad tablet computers in a bid to gain traction in a market dominated by Apple's iPad.

TouchPads with 16 gigabytes of memory were offered on the HP website for $400 and models with 32 gigabytes were available for $500 in what amounted to lopping $100 off the original prices.

TouchPads made their US debut in early July as HP took on iPad and Android devices in the fast-growing tablet market, and are sold by major US retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart as well as on Amazon.com.

Unlike the iPad, the TouchPad supports Adobe's Flash video format. It runs the webOS operating system, developed by Palm, the mobile-device pioneer that HP acquired last year for $1.2 billion.

The TouchPad debuted to mixed reviews, suggesting it will face an uphill climb against the iPad and other devices.

Apple touts having sold 25 million iPads since releasing the first version of the device in April 2010. It released its next-generation iPad 2 in March.

Besides the iPad, the market for tablet computers now includes the Samsung Galaxy Tab, the BlackBerry PlayBook, the Motorola Xoom and dozens of devices running Google's Android operating system.

HP's stock has slumped since the beginning of the year amid investor concerns that the Palo Alto, California-based company is being overtaken by younger, nimbler rivals such as Apple and Dell.

BlackBerry Bold 9900 launched in India

Canada's BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) Thursday launched its touch and type smartphone -- BlackBerry Bold 9900 with BlackBerry 7 operating system -- in India.

"The smartphone is built on a new performance driven platform powered by the latest BlackBerry software and hardware," said the company in a statement.

"In addition to supporting the new BlackBerry 7 operating system, the phone features a range of powerful hardware enhancements, including HD (hi-definition) video recording and advanced sensors enabling new augmented reality applications such as Wikitude that can be integrated with BlackBerry messenger 6," it added.

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 is the thinnest BlackBerry smartphone yet at only 10.5 mm.

BlackBerry 7 introduces a next generation BlackBerry browser with a significantly faster, more fluid web browsing experience with enhancements including optimized zooming and panning for smoother web navigation, the statement said.

Motorola launches three dual-sim phones

Motorola Mobility has launched three new dual-sim devices in India - Motorola EX212, Motorola EX 119 and Motorola EX 109.

The EX 212 will feature a flip out design, the EX 119 and EX 109 will be proud owners of full QWERTY keyboards.

The EX 212 will also feature a 2.4-inch QVGA display and will have a 2-megapixel camera along FM radio capabilities. 

Besides this, the EX 119 will boast of a super-slim profile of 9.9mm, 2.4-inch QVGA display and a 3 megapixel snapper. It will also have built in social-networking capabilities.

The EX 109 will be a more barebones package with a 2-inch display and a 2 megapixel camera.

The EX 212 is available for Rs 5,190, while the EX 119 is available for Rs 6,190 and the EX 109 is the cheapest of the lot at Rs 3,590. 

Review: Samsung Galaxy Tab 750

On January 27, 2010 Apple boss Steve Jobs introduced the world to a little something called the iPad, and suddenly tablet became something other than what you take when ill. A flotilla of other tablets, mostly Android, followed but failed to crash Apple's party. Samsung, with its original Galaxy Tab starring a 7- inch display and Android Froyo, led the charge but to no avail. A year later, here are the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9, both are running Google's tablet OS, Honeycomb. But are they any different from the slew of Honeycomb tablets already flooding the market?


Packaging and Content

Our jaws dropped when we first saw the packaging - a humongous cube like box. Clearly, size does matter to Samsung. The box could probably fit two full frame DSLR cameras. But we are not complaining! The outsized packaging makes the device supremely secure - so secure, it would probably survive even if thrown out of a moving vehicle. Overall, the packaging was very similar to that of the Galaxy S II, except larger.

As far as content went, all the standard amenities such as the power adaptor, the proprietary USB connection cable and the tablet itself were present. Nothing revolutionary here!

Hardware and Styling

Samsung has adopted a widescreen design with the Galaxy 10.1. It is an interesting decision. While other tablet manufactures like Acer too have adopted similar form-factors, the implementation on the Galaxy Tab is superior thanks to its being ultra light at 565 grams making it more comfortable for over extended periods of use. And yes, it is lighter than the iPad 2 - by a minute 36 grams, but there it is. The comparisons with iPad 2 don't stop here as the svelte Galaxy Tab 10.1 snatches the tag of the world's thinnest tablet from the iPad 2 by 0.2-mm. 8.6-mm vs 8.8-mm may seem negligible but it matters a lot when it comes to heavy usage.

Obviously, in designing the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Samsung has borrowed design cues from the their own product portfolio. Be it LED TVs or smartphones, we see a bit of everything in the Galaxy Tab.

Originally, when Samsung had announced the Galaxy Tab, it was thicker but Samsung decided to totally redesign the device in the wake of the iPad 2. We must say that it is a very commendable effort. Samsung has of late made a conscious decision to make super-light products and this design philosophy is also seen in the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Like in the Galaxy S II, Samsung has used an ultra light plastic in the construction of the device, especially the glossy white back finish. This felt a tad flimsy as we could actually depress it if we held the device firmly. The 3-megapixel camera is also housed in the rear which is, as usual, more of a formality.

Samsung claims that it has added an aluminum element in the construction, which tapers down the sides of the device and extends up to the rear, covering the area surrounding the camera. This is problematic, as it certainly did not feel like aluminum. It felt more like painted plastic but we do not have any evidence to prove this. What ever may be the case, the fact is that it just does not have the solidity of aluminum.

We get the impression that Galaxy Tab tries to mimic the look of a Samsung LCD, but we felt that they could have saved more space as the bezel measured 0.75-inches. Samsung has produced thinner bezels - their Smart TVs measure 0.50-inch. Such small details could have helped make the Galaxy Tab 10.1 a more svelte product as its still feels a tad larger than the iPad in spite of all the weight and profile reduction attempts made. We mention this as, in our opinion, if there is a company capable of out-foxing Apple in design, it is Samsung. That hasn't yet happened, but Samsung has done a pretty good job of out-maneuvering Sony in the LCD market and let's not forget Sony are also known for their elegant products.

Apart from all the design niceties of the Galaxy Tab 10.1, we get a front facing camera for video chat. The standard volume rockers, micro-SD card slot, 3.5 mm and power button are all housed on the top of the device.

Interestingly, the bottom side of the devices houses an Apple-esque proprietary connector for USB and HDMI. Unfortunately, the HDMI adaptor will be sold separately alongside a micro USB dongle. In all likelihood Samsung had to abandon the inbuilt USB and HDMI ports in their quest for slenderness, which we do not mind, but we do mind them charging us extra for additional dongles, which should have been included in the package.

But there is no denying the fact the Galaxy Tab is the most portable and comfortable tablet to carry around in the market today and, dare we say it, more so than the iPad 2, which is an astonishing achievement by Samsung considering they totally redesigned the product in the wake of the iPad 2. Take a bow.

Interface

With the launch of the Motorola Xoom and Acer Iconia A500, Google has established a solid Honeycomb presence in India. Many people ask us how are they different from each other, and our answer is the form factor and the full USB port offered in the Acer Iconia. The standard reply is in the region of 'That's it!' and all we can do is nod along as the internals and the OS are identical. So our question to Samsung: how would they differentiate the Galaxy Tab from their Android competitors in India on the basis of User Experience? They fired back with an answer. It was TouchWiz UX, the Android skin implemented on the Galaxy Tab.

We have seen TouchWiz before on Samsung smartphones but this is the first time it makes an appearance on a Honeycomb device. As always, Android skinning is a double-edged sword with minor performance blips caused by the extra eye-candy, but this should not be a major problem.

With TouchWiz UX, Samsung adds Live Panels to the Honeycomb homescreen, which includes a multitude of Samsung widgets such as AccuWeather, Samsung Mail and Calendar. Samsung has also re-designed the iconography of Honeycomb with their trademark cartoonish icons, which we hate! They look like cheap rip-offs of iOS icons and this is one area where Samsung gets nothing but minus points.

A nifty addition to the UI is the inclusion of a screenshot button right inside the UI, which is placed next to the 'open apps scroller' option. Besides this, we get another option in the bottom task bar, which opens up a dock of some handy apps. This dock can be opened from any app as it is well ingrained into the UI.

Samsung has become a devout supporter of gyroscope based gesture controls as seen in the Galaxy S II. The same holds true for the Galaxy tab 10.1. We get the same gesture based Tilt Zoom functionalities. With the gesture controls we could even flip widget placement. While we don't know how many people will use this party trick, it is a handy addition and,more importantly, exclusive to the Galaxy Tab for right now.

We also see numerous Android 3.1 upgrades of which most are 'under the hood' relating to the operating system stability, but one has to mention the resizable widgets. Now we can resize the widgets on the home screen according to our own whims and fancies. Pretty cool! Where is the like button, if we may ask?

Samsung has even added SWYPE capabilities in the stock keyboard. We were never big fans of SWYPE when we first saw it on smartphones, but on the larger tablet display it is a revelation. Even the keyboard itself felt well laid out, and though we still prefer the iPad's slick auto-correction skills, it is a very good keyboard indeed.

Besides the UI tweaks, we have found many new applications, which make the Galaxy Tab a more complete device. More on these apps in the Essential Apps section of the review.

Multimedia

As a rule, the tablet form-factor specializes in multimedia consumption and the Galaxy Tab is no exception to this rule. It is an absolute multimedia leviathan.

But the process of adding media to the device can become a tearful experience if you happen to own Apple hardware as in its current state the Android File Manager utility for Mac OS X does not support the Galaxy Tab. Google, you better rectify this, you are torpedoing Samsung's chances.

In this case we were left with the 'Kies Air' Wi-Fi sync app, but, come on, how can a device miss out on USB connectivity even if it's the Mac OS, which has a market share as large as a bacteria.

Fortunately, we faced no such problems on our Windows machine.

With Honeycomb, Google finally managed to re-design the stock Android MP3 player, and it was beautiful. It featured a beautiful, carousel-like, album-art flipping interface. But please note the use of the past tense - it 'was' a beautiful MP3 player because with the Galaxy Tab, Samsung had the urge to skin it. So what we have here is an MP3 player, sans the beautiful stock interface. Why, Samsung? Why would you strip an application of its natural beauty?

Apart from this folly, the app is actually quite handy as the songs are divided in a well-organized way and also we get multiple equalizer modes, which help modulate the sound frequencies according to the users preferences.

Interestingly, we can even launch the MP3 player from the Samsung dock, which opens a small widget like window and can be blown to its full size just with a tap. This is handy as one can start the MP3 from within any app without needing to switch to the menu screen.

When it comes to video, we can safely say that the Galaxy Tab offers the best video experience on a tablet device, iPad 2 included. We say this, as the on-board 1280x800 LCD display is the best yet to grace a tablet. It features sublime contrast ratios, impressive brightness levels and best in class viewing angles. This is not surprising as Samsung is the leading manufacturer of LCD displays in the world and they also supply the display panel for the iPad but it's clear they reserved the best one for their own tablet.

Even the Video app has received the TouchWiz Skinning treatment, but luckily most of the changes only improve the navigation of the app. We managed to play multitude of video formats without glitches including 720p HD video. Formats like .MKV, .AVI and. Xvid all worked seamlessly.

The 3-Megapixel camera is just about passable. It produces grainy pictures but thankfully we get many options such as white balance, focus modes, Scene Mode, effects and Geo tagging. The camera is par for the course as the even Motorola and Acer have employed poor cameras on their devices while the iPad's camera is not even worth mentioning.

The 720p HD video was also a tad jittery, again we believe the tablet form factor is not ideal for any kind of photography so, and mostly consumers don't care about the back camera. They only care about the front facing camera, which can enable video-chat.

Apart from this, the device comes with 16GB of memory, which will be ample. But if it's not enough, then one can always add up-to 32GB in the memory card slot.


 
PC Sync and Market

As always with Android devices syncing is probably amongst the easiest things to do. You only need to login to your Gmail account and you are good to go. The same can be done on the Galaxy Tab, but Samsung has stepped up the game with the 'Kies Air' Wi-Fi sync application. We have seen this app before on the Galaxy S II smartphone and it's very handy indeed. All one has to do is connect to a Wi-Fi network (the same one as your PC/MAC) and connect. The app will reproduce an IP address, which we need to type in our browser, and voila! We have access to all the data. We can drag and drop files, save messages and much more.

Adding more to the synchronization carnival, Samsung brings its Social Hub, which basically aggregates all information from one's E-mails, Facebook and Twitter.

Handy, but we'd rather use the dedicated Facebook and Twitter apps. Whoops, they are not available on Honeycomb. So, for the time being, we are stuck with the Social Hub. Luckily though, the web-browser opens a full version of Facebook with chat support unlike the iPad.

As far as Android Market goes we all know that Honeycomb is struggling with a dearth of apps hampering the growth of the platform. We only have 200 odd Honeycomb optimized apps, which is shockingly low - even the webOS powered HP TouchPad launched with more than a 1000 webOS apps recently.

Samsung provides their own apps store, but it's nothing special and we only get a handful of apps, most of which are available on Android Market.

Essential Apps

Apart from the standard Google apps, The Galaxy Tab 10.1 brings in much more utility thanks to TouchWiz UX.

So some of the more important apps include the following:

1.      Samsung Hubs
2.      Samsung Mail
3.      Gmail
4.      Kobo eBooks
5.      Pen memo
6.      Photo Editor
7.      World Clock
8.      Polaris Office

The most major update that TouchWiz UX brings in relates to the Samsung Hubs - namely Social Hub (discussed above), and the Music Hub.

Currently, the Music Hub is not functional in India, but Samsung tells us it is powered by 7-digital and hopes to offer an online hub where consumers can purchase music similar to iTunes.

Skinning is the name of the game so Samsung added their Email app, which, surprisingly, has issues with Gmail. This is not new - we encountered it earlier in our Samsung Smart TV review and also with the Galaxy S II. Apart from this, it handles Microsoft Exchange accounts pretty well, but we see no utility for it as Android already offers us a robust Email app.

As far as our Gmail troubles went, we chucked the Samsung Email app and logged into the fantastic stock Android Gmail app. It is clearly the best way of accessing one's Gmail account. The app is neatly divided into two separate panes reminding us of Mail from the iPad. Thanks to the Android 3.1 update we now have resizable widgets, which means our Gmail widget looks cooler than ever.

The Kobo eBooks app is reminiscent of iBooks on the iPad, with its bookshelf like home-screen. The app includes the standard page turning niceties that come with eBook apps. With Kobo powering the app, we have access to a vast library of books, but it's a bummer that Google's own Books app is not available in India as it has a larger library of books and will soon incorporate a newsstand for newspapers and magazines.

The Pen Memo is a note-taking application and it even allows one to scribble with our fingers, but the whole experience was very laggy reminding us of a time when the Symbian powered Sony Ericsson P900 was the pinnacle of mobile OS technology.

The Photo-Editor app works exactly as advertised. We could crop images, do minor touch-ups, apply effects, change various color properties. This one is aimed at Photoshop junkies.

Samsung felt that the Android clock was not good enough; they saw fit to install a world clock. In theory, this could come in handy for frequent travellers. The app welcomes us with globe, which can be manipulated using pinch zoom but it does not do much.

Polaris Office handles the office duties on the Galaxy Tab. It can handle the standard Microsoft Office formats such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. It also includes Box.Net integration, which is immensely handy if one seeks cloud integration.

Apart from all these apps we have access to all the Google apps, such as Maps, Places and Latitude, which makes the Android experience very robust and cohesive.

While Samsung has gone to great lengths to add functionality to the already robust Honeycomb OS, none of these apps have an effect on the consumer's choice. The one app that could have is the Music Hub and that's sadly unavailable to us in India.

Performance

When a 1GHz NVidia Tegra 2 processor and 1GB of RAM power a device, we expect it to be a speed demon. But TouchWiz UX skin has a tardy effect on the device and we found it to be a tad slow in comparison to the Motorola Xoom, which also runs Android Honeycomb 3.1. The major problem we faced was that whenever we activated a Live wallpaper the device slowed down considerably. Even after multiple Factory Resets the problem persisted and it only went away when we installed the standard static wallpaper. This could be a problem with our review unit but, if not, should be easy enough to rectify through a software update. Anyway, most people don't use Live Wallpapers so Samsung can probably breathe easy. Nonetheless, the effects of skinning were evident.

Apart from this flaw, the device was very smooth and the performance was comparable to the other Android Honeycomb based tablets. Even the benchmark tests agree with our assessment.

On the Quadrant Benchmark, the Galaxy Tab scored an impressive 2378, which is more or less par for the course. In comparison, the Motorola Xoom scored 1916, but once we had updated it to Honeycomb 3.1 the performance deficit increased as the Xoom only managed 1572.

On the Linpack Pro test, the Galaxy Tab scored 54.129 MFLOPs in 3.12 seconds while the updated Xoom scored 59.875 in 2.82 seconds.

In the Benchmark Pi test, the Galaxy Tab calculated Pi in 563 milliseconds, and the Xoom beat the Galaxy Tab by a minute 1 millisecond.

Even on the Browsermark test, the stalemate continued as the Galaxy Tab scored 83672 and the Xoom closely followed with 81574. The Honeycomb web-browser generally has been very impressive with its Flash support and the same holds true for the Galaxy Tab.

Another impressive facet of the Galaxy tab was its battery life as it lasted 8 hours and 26 minutes with incessant Wi-Fi and 3G use. Video and browser usage did not hamper it much and only the iPad managed to beat it in terms of battery life, which was pretty impressive.


Verdict

At present, we can safely say that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the best of the rest. It is the closest thing to an iPad competitor - if such a thing exists. It boasts of a sublime slim form factor making it the most portable tablet in the market and also has an impressive OS, which is only shot down by the lack of apps.

While all this is nice, we do have issues, which TouchWiz UX as it slows down the general performance of the tablet.  In spite of all the good things we have to say about it, we still cannot recommend it over the iPad - at least not till the apps situation drastically improves for Honeycomb.



Specifications

Pros
Compact form factor
Beautiful Display
Tilt Motion controls
Wi-Fi sync

Cons
TouchWiz UX is a double-edged sword
No USB and HDMI dongles in package
Apps selection
Poor Mac OSX support


Ratings
�         Performance: 3.5
�         Price: 3.5
�         Ease of Setup: 4.5
�         Ergonomics: 4.5
�         Wow Factor: 4.5

iPads trump oil: Apple is most valuable US company

It doesn't take a visit to the Genius Bar to figure out how Apple became the most valuable company in America.

Its lineup of sleek phones, computers and iPods, irresistible to customers even in tough economic times, propelled it to the No. 1 position by market value Wednesday, surpassing Exxon Mobil. Apple's stock on the open market is now worth more than any other company's.

Apple's stock fell for the day, but Exxon's fell more. Apple finished with a market value of $337 billion, beating Exxon's $331 billion. A single share of Apple stock now costs $363.

Apple occupies a rarefied spot once held by General Electric and Apple's own rival Microsoft. Exxon had held the top spot since 2005.

The power shift is a substantial milestone for Apple, which has enjoyed a triumphant comeback since the 1990s, when it struggled to stay afloat before its co-founder Steve Jobs returned to take the helm.

But it's not just the comeback. Gleacher & Co. analyst Brian Marshall says Apple is giving investors something that has never been seen before. Apple's numbers are huge, with $30 billion in revenue in the latest quarter, for example. Yet Marshall said the 35-year-old company is "growing like a startup."

"Even in 2008 and 2009 Apple grew like a weed and the world was coming to an end," Marshall said.

Apple grew its net income 70 percent to $14 billion and its revenue 52 percent to $65 billion in the fiscal year that ended last September. A year earlier, even as other companies - though not Exxon - were reeling from the economic meltdown, Apple's earnings grew 35 percent and its revenue 14 percent.

Apple wasn't always a tech darling. The company, known as Apple Computer Inc. when it was founded in 1976, was on a steep decline before Jobs returned in 1997.

With Jobs as CEO, Apple is known for dreaming up gadgets that people don't think they need until they get their hands on them - or see friends and relatives with them. There were music players, smartphones and tablet computers before Apple introduced the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. But the Apple gadgets' sleek, minimalist design and intuitive software have garnered them a loyal following among tech geeks and everyday consumers alike.

"Never underestimate the power of Joe Sixpack relative to expenditures on consumer electronics," Marshall said.

People want their gadgets, especially those made by Apple, even in a recession and even as they watch their stock portfolios and retirement funds shrink.

Still, Apple commands just a sliver of the overall smartphone and computer market. For that reason, Apple can grow at such a fast pace. "They have just a tremendous runway in front of them," Marshall said.

Exxon, which set a record in 2008 for the highest quarterly earnings by any company, will find it hard to compete with Apple's growth because its prospects are tethered to oil prices and new oil discovery.

Apple's growth is limited only by innovation. Investors expect it to grow as long as it keeps making products that people want. So investors are betting on Apple's stock even though it currently makes less money than Exxon.

In its latest quarterly report, Apple said stronger iPhone and iPad sales helped more than double its net income to $7.3 billion and grow revenue by 82 percent to $29 billion.

Exxon Mobil, meanwhile, posted a 41 percent increase in its second-quarter earnings to nearly $11 billion, the largest since it set a record of nearly $15 billion in the third quarter of 2008. Its revenue grew 36 percent to $125 billion.

International companies that vie for the most valuable spot include PetroChina Co., the publicly traded unit of China's biggest oil and gas company, and Petrobras, Brazil's state-controlled energy company.

In the U.S., Exxon and General Electric had been trading off the No. 1 and No. 2 spots until Microsoft surpassed them both in early 1999, at the height of the dot-com boom. By 2000, though, GE was No. 1 once again. According to data from FactSet, the three were close over the next five years, though Apple was ascending quickly. Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil took the top spot in 2005 and remained there until Wednesday.

Apple's ascendance to the top spot is a sign of the times. Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at Standard & Poor's, says the most valued company in the U.S. often reflects the demands of consumers. They also tend to have products that are unmatched by their rivals.

In 1986, for example, IBM Corp. was the most valuable company in the Standard & Poor's 500 index. At the time, the company was considered a pioneer in the technology world, having developed the floppy disk drive in 1971 and the personal computer ten years later.

AT&T Inc. was the most valuable company in the early 1980s when it was the dominant player in the telecommunications industry.

The top companies "tell us something about society, not just the market," Silverblatt said.

But, as history has shown, those companies can easily lose out to rivals if they don't keep coming out with products that appeal to consumers.

"If in 1999, you told anybody that one day Apple would be bigger than Microsoft, I think they would have laughed at you as if you were nuts," said Jonathan Berk, a professor of finance at Stanford University.

Apple generally introduces a new product every three years, which means something new in 2013. Marshall does not expect the company to slow down any time soon.

In fact, he expects Apple to pass yet another milestone next year, when it's likely to surpass Hewlett-Packard Co. as the world's largest technology company by revenue. In the most recent quarter, HP reported $31.6 billion in revenue, compared with Apple's $28.6 billion in its latest quarter.