The Hanns G HL229DPB monitor has a 21.5-inch screen with a 1920 x 1080 resolution and a 1,000:1 contrast ratio, all for the very wallet-friendly price of £89. But is it too good to be true?

As you might expect from an LED monitor, the HL229DPB's weight is pretty light, even by flatscreen standards. However, we were disappointed to see that for all its LED splendour, it's not much thinner than a standard LCD monitor, with a thickness of 48mm.

Less surprising is the lack of a HDMI port. The DVI input is HDCP compliant, which means if you've got a Blu-ray drive in your Mac you can use a HDMI-to-DVI cable to view Blu-rays on this monitor.

The buttons aren't ghastly to use, but not as pleasant as the touch sensitive icons found on other screens. It's not as good looking as Apple's own monitors, but it is a lot less expensive.

Of course, the most important question is how good is the image quality? Pretty good, as it happens. Throughout our tests colours were reproduced well, with gradients running smoothly, rather than the blocky juxtapositions of colours displayed by some cheap monitors.

As you'd expect from an LED monitor, contrasts between light and dark colours were very good. Text was impressive, even with small fonts. Viewing angles were also good.

Overview

If AMD's HD 7970 debut Southern Islands card arrived in a fancy tux heralding a bunch of world firsts (first PCIe 3.0 card, first DirectX 11.1-compatible), this HD 7750 turns up to little fanfare in a Burton polo shirt and trainers.

The new Graphics Core Next's architecture has already been shown off by the HD 7970 and those 4.3 billion transistors pack quite a punch, as it turns out, trouncing the very best of last generations' GPUs by around 20-30% at mega-high res.

The HD 7970 is also excruciatingly pricey though. At £440 its staggering performance and overclocking capability are out of reach to most gamers.

The HD 7750 should arrive hitting the right side of £80, making it an altogether friendlier proposal, and these new-gen AMD cards boast some excellent power efficiency by shutting off all but one core when your system enters power save mode.

But what's this HD 7750 missing out on to hit that price point? Does it still make high-res screens sing?

Benchmarks

We put the HD 7750 through its paces in the super-taxing Heaven 2.5 benchmark at a gigantic 2560 x 1600 and stressed every nanometre of its circuitry in the most demanding DX11 games at 1920 x 1080.

The HD 7750 bested Nvidia's rival sub-£100 card, the GTX 550 Ti, but came a cropper against the HD 6770.

DirectX 11 tessellation performance: Heaven 2.5: Frames per second: Higher is better

AMD HD 7750: 9.4
AMD HD 6770: 8.0
EVGA GTX 550 Ti: 8.9

DirectX 11 gaming performance: Frames per second: Higher is better

DiRT 3

AMD HD 7750: 28.64
AMD HD 6770: 36.83
AMD HD 6850: 42.62

Shogun 2

AMD HD 7750: 20.33
AMD HD 6770: 25.85
AMD HD 6850: 32.0

Metro 2033

AMD HD 7750: 11.67
AMD HD 6770: 10.33
AMD HD 6850: 15.67

Just Cause 2

AMD HD 7750: 26.13
AMD HD 6770: 26.19
AMD HD 6850: 34.14

Verdict

Our opinions on this freshman 'Cape Verde' chip are dependent on UK pricing. If the $95 US price converts somewhere near the actual exchange rate without too much mark-up, it'll be available at £80 or less, and if that's the case you'll be getting some great performance returns for your outlay if you skipped a generation or two in your graphics card upgrade schedule.

If that UK price falls closer to the £100 mark though, it'll be a misfire, rather than one of those classic AMD bargains you wait for with each new gen's advent. The HD 7750 is quicker than its big Nvidia rival, the GTX 550 Ti, and its predecessor, the HD 5770 - but not the HD 6770.

General performance is limited primarily by a slender 128-bit frame buffer, however the die-shrink down from 45nm to 28nm and increase in transistor count that comes with it gives this Southern Islands card a definite edge in tessellation-heavy tasks. It's apparent in its strong Heaven 2.5 score, but in non-synthetic benchmarks the performance gain from the new architecture isn't as noticeable.

Overclocking the HD 7750's a mixed bag, too. On the one hand, it handles big core and memory clock increases smoothly and without crashes - we had ours cranked up to 900 MHz on the core clock from the 800 MHz stock setting without any glitching or hangs.

The downside though, is that we didn't really achieve a whole lot of performance increase by doing so – it only reported a 0.1 FPS increase when we ran the Heaven 2.5 benchmark. That, along with general performance, is likely to change as the 7700 series' drivers mature though.

We liked

We'll get a better idea of the HD 7750's true worth when firm UK prices arrive, AMD's drivers optimise and third parties get their overclocking mitts on it, but at present all evidence points to a strong budget card that'll appeal to anyone playing at 1080p or lower, and keeps an eye on power efficiency.

We disliked

We're hoping there's more potential under the bonnet for overclocking performance than we were able to extract with the early drivers, since AMD's flagship 7-series card the HD 7970 overclocked so damn well.

If it doesn't work out that way, this card still offers enough stock performance over its peers to make it worth a look.

Overview

AMD showed its hand first in this year's GPU arms race with Nvidia... by turning it into last year's arms race.

While Nvidia has kept shtum about its upcoming new 'Kepler' architecture and looks to do so until Spring, AMD stole the march and released the first of its new 7-series cards, the AMD HD 7970, a few days before Christmas 2011.

That sure was odd timing, but it taught us a lot about AMD's new Southern Islands architecture, specifically the 'Tahiti' chip. It's fully PCIe 3.0-supported, uses a 28nm manufacturing process to pack more transistors onto a PCB than ever before, and apart from offering very quick DX11 game frame rates, it's a highly energy efficient beast.

When your system drifts off into standby, the Tahiti card switches itself all but off too, minimising power draw.

The HD 7970's whopping £440 price made all those neat features all but irrelevant to the gaming masses though, so we're putting our hopes on this HD 7770 to deliver the best bits of the new AMD architecture for a more palatable price.

The 'Cape Verde' chip that this HD 7770 is built around makes full use of the new Graphics Core Next architecture like its big bro, with ZeroCore power efficiency in tow and a solid 1,000 MHz core clock. If it can offer a slice of the HD 7970's performance for this price, it's on to a winner.

Architecture, technology and specifications

The Graphics Core Next architecture is a bold move from AMD in that it represents a move away from the VLIW instruction used in 6-series cards towards a GPU-processing-friendly SIMD vector processor.

The previous processor type was great for graphics processing, but not suited to general purpose GPU computing - AMD left that side of things up to Nvidia and its CUDA cores.

Graphics Core Next is a u-turn on that philosophy though. GCN allows up to 16 data elements to be processed in a single clock cycle.

Grouping data before it runs through the vector processor is really efficient when dealing with general processing tasks - but the bad news for games is that you won't notice that difference in Battlefield 3 - the strengths of this architecture are wider-reaching than that, even as far as the professional market.

GCN also understands advanced languages like C++, meaning that in the long run, it'll be easier for developers to make use of the 7-series cards for complex programs.

The performance improvement from this architecture comes from passing data through a ton of compute units, which all work on the same operation until it's completed, and the resulting compute performance of this HD 7770 card is impressive at 1.28 TFLOPS.

It's built with ten compute units rather than the HD 7970's sixteen, but that's still enough to demonstrate a marked performance increase on last generation's equivalent model. And with AMD and Nvidia now adopting similar stances in their design, it's becoming an increasingly straight battle between the two - no hiding behind the blurred lines of CUDA cores and stream processors.

So the number of compute units and the simplified SIMD instructions they perform give AMD's 7-series cards the brains, but the clock speed is still the brawn of the operation. And at a world-first 1,000 MHz, it's fair to say the HD 7770 has brawn in check.

Benchmarks

We tested the HD 7770 with the most demanding DX11 around at 1080p, and with the Heaven 2.5 benchmark at 2560 x 1600 to really test its limits. It fared reasonably, demonstrating why it's more expensive than the HD 7750 and keeping in the same ball park as the pricier but older HD 6850.

DirectX 11 tessellation performance: Frames per second: Higher is betterHeaven 2.5

AMD HD 7770: 11.9
AMD HD 6850: 12.5
EVGA GTX 550 Ti: 8.9

DirectX 11 gaming performance: Frames per second: Higher is better

DiRT 3

AMD HD 7770: 41.73
AMD HD 7750: 28.64
AMD HD 6850: 42.62

Shogun 2

AMD HD 7770: 30.77
AMD HD 7750: 20.33
AMD HD 6850: 31.86

Metro 2033

AMD HD 7770: 13.00
AMD HD 7750: 11.67
AMD HD 6850: 15.67

Just Cause 2

AMD HD 7770: 31.18
AMD HD 7750: 26.13
AMD HD 6850: 34.14

Verdict

Many of the HD 7770's new features won't be noticeable right away. The underlying architecture is a big step forward for AMD that programmers and developers will find attractive, but for gamers looking to get playable frame rates out of DX11 games at 1080p its benefits aren't as obvious.

We're expecting the HD 7770 to enter at around the £100 point, which means it's going up against Nvidia's 550 Ti. While we didn't see it outperform the Nvidia card by the 100% AMD implied, it does hold a clear performance advantage, in addition to the subtler features under its bonnet.

Our sticking point though is that it was outclassed in every benchmark we ran by the previous generations' darling; the HD 6850. With just £20 difference between the two cards, we'd have liked to have seen a closer battle between the two.

It's worth mentioning that AMD's drivers tend to get better results from any given card after a few months of refinement, so further down the line we might see more parity in the benchmark figures between the two cards.

As with the HD 7750, the HD 7770 didn't impress in its overclocking performance the way AMD's high-end HD 7970 did. That £440 card maxed out AMD's overclocking software settings before crashing; the same can't be said here.

We managed to add on another 50 MHz to the core and memory clocks which yielded a modest increase in our benchmark tests, but it wasn't a reliable runner with those settings - glitches and crashes kicked in after a few minutes. Hopefully we'll see the full extent of the HD 7770's potential when the third party manufacturers release their beefed-up versions.

The 7-series might not all deliver staggering performance and overclocking, and that's to be expected given their wildly different pricings, but there is one feature that consistently impresses across the range - ZeroCore.

This is power-efficiency taken to a happy extreme – when your system enters a long-idle state, the HD 7700 along with all 7-series cards completely powers down the fan, 3D engine, compute units, shaders – virtually the whole card. The only activity going on comes from a small bus control block, which simply lets your computer know that the card still exists and no-one stole the GPU while it's been asleep.

We found it to be fast-acting, and dramatically reduced power draw when our system went idle.

We liked

This HD 7770 brings AMD's new architectural features to the budget audience with reasonable success.

Its GCN design and ZeroCore power efficiency make it a compelling argument to choose new over old, but it doesn't quite blow the best of the 6-series cards out of the water in plain old gaming performance.

We disliked

The HD 6850 can't do the 7-series cards' tricks, but it can render Metro 2033 frames quicker, and that makes the HD 7770 a tricky one to recommend.

As a stock card, it doesn't offer anything outstanding, but aftermarket companies might yet yield some impressive performances out of it.

When Apple released Final Cut Pro X back in June, it caused a furore. This wasn't the Final Cut Pro that people had grown to love, that had revolutionised the video editing industry and that had taken both the independents and the major studios by storm.

This was something else, and given how many features had vanished, many thought it certainly didn't deserve its 'pro' monicker.

But Apple is keen to show its customers that just because some features were dropped from the current version, doesn't mean that they'll never make a comeback. So it got busy and released two fairly substantial updates last year.

Now comes the third one, which is the biggest since the program's launch. Apple's engineers have tried to meet professional editors' most pressing needs, which include support for multi-camera editing, improved chroma keying, the ability to connect to broadcast monitors, and better import and export options, among others. So how does it all look now?

Multicam is easy to use and incredibly powerful. Just like in FCP7, it can handle up to 64 different angles, but unlike its predecessor, you can work with clips of multiple formats and frame rates without having to render or convert them - they all play at the same time in the Angle Viewer.

The chroma keying tools that came with version 10.0.0 were already better than version 7's, but the added refinements are incredibly impressive.

To test it out, we loaded up one of our first attempts at a green screen, where everything that could have gone wrong, had. The improved Chroma Key filter did remarkably well. It wasn't perfect – we would have been amazed if it was, considering the material it had to work with, but compared with what you could achieve with FCP7's built-in filters, it was impressive.

Compatibility with broadcast monitors is absolutely crucial and is achieved via third-party cards as well as Thunderbolt-enabled devices. The process is labelled a Beta, so check with the manufacturers to make sure their solution is compatible - you'll also need to be running Lion.

The beauty of this update is that it covers many parts of the editing process. For instance, you can once more work with multi-layered Photoshop files and manipulate each layer individually.

Keyframe behaviour has reverted back to the way it used to work: in the previous version, if you set a keyframe then altered that parameter elsewhere along the clip, another keyframe would be instantly created for you. For some reason, that immense timesaver had disappeared in FCPX but it's now reinstated.

But perhaps most important of all is the program's compatibility with XML 1.1, a format that allows you to import and export data from your project and its clips to and from other programs. This means it's now finally possible to bring your projects from FCP7 into Apple's new flagship editing application - although this can only be done via a third-party program called 7toX.

It's not all good news though. For instance, it's still impossible to create sequences of any size - you're limited to a select few standard options. And if you work in green screen a lot, you'll puzzle at the absence of garbage mattes.

However, the list of missing features is dwindling and it may be time to explore FCPX more seriously, especially if you can migrate your projects. This is the first version that we feel may be worth considering from a professional perspective.

Overview

Always liked the idea of an all-in-one camera with a massive zoom capability, but hated the often all too-plastic feel? Fuji's X-S1 may, nay will, cause you to re-evaluate the humble bridge camera.

Whereas Fuji has previously applied an 'X' - its signifier of a premium camera - to the Leica-like FinePix X10, for the first time it gives a superzoom that same distinction.

This means that the new 26x optical zoom Fuji X-S1 figuratively sits above the existing Fuji HS20 and HS30 models, even though the latter boast 30x zoom (maximum 720mm equivalent telephoto setting in 35mm terms).

While the construction of all three Fuji HS models to date has for us been more solid than any competing bridge camera, the Fuji X-S1 takes build quality to a new level. It looks and even smells gorgeous, thanks to a rubberised coating adorning the entire DSLR-like body.

Despite the neck-straining weight of 945g fully loaded, photographers aren't likely to get butter-fingered with this camera, even when manually operating the similarly rubber-entombed zoom, here running from a wide 24mm to 624mm in 35mm terms.

Thankfully this is supported by optical image stabilisation, which is needed.

At a suggested price of £699 in the UK or $949 in the US, the camera is immediately competing directly with your actual DSLR, so once again it's worth weighing up whether a focal range this broad and an all-in-one solution is actually required. Or if a DSLR's lens-swapping flexibility - the X-S1's optic is resolutely fixed - would suit you better.

The 'X' in the name is not just a marketing ploy. The Fuji X-S1 features the same sensor as that of the X10; namely 12 megapixels and 2/3-inches in size, once again using Fuji EXR CMOS technology which, in slightly gimmicky fashion, can be deployed in a choice of three ways, as it can on Fuji's existing compacts.

We also get an EXR processor, delivering a blink-and-miss-it 0.01 second shutter lag. And the attendant features we'd expect on an enthusiast's camera are all present and correct: full manual control via P,A,S,M modes, manual focus and raw shooting option, Full HD video capture with dedicated record button snuggled just below the shooting mode dial, 10fps burst shooting at 6MP, Fuji's film simulation modes buried in the menus, 500 shot rechargeable battery, plus a panorama mode that can take in the full 360 degrees. Phew!

Build quality and handling

Gripped in the palm, the Fuji X-S1 feels seriously substantial - a good deal more rugged than most entry and mid-range DSLRs, in fact. There's sufficient space between lens barrel and meaty grip to comfortably squeeze the three or four fingers of your right hand, while the left hand naturally grips the lens barrel to provide a steadier aim at longer telephoto settings.

This may not be the cheapest bridge camera, but the construction lets you know you're getting what you've paid for. To zoom in and out, you simply twist the lens barrel.

While the camera is big and bulky, the knock-on effect is that - usefully - so are the controls.

Chief among them is an 11-option mode dial offering the usual creative quarter of Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Manual settings, three custom settings, scene modes, Advanced mode - which is where we find the 360-degree panorama option - plus Auto mode and EXR sensor mode. The latter again features an Auto EXR option, or the aforementioned three user-selectable settings.

These are full resolution HR (High Resolution) mode, 6MP high sensitivity low noise images in 'SN' (Signal to Noise) mode, or 6MP high dynamic range 'DR' option to avoid a detail-devoid bright background or dark foreground.

As with Fuji's other EXR suffix cameras, the X-S1 achieves the latter by automatically capturing and combining two separate shots.

For setting up photos and videos, the Fuji X-S1 offers both a comparatively large (roughly half inch) and bright 1.44million dot electronic viewfinder (EVF) with a time-saving eye sensor to activate it.

Switching from the EVF to the 3-inch LCD screen below requires the pressing of a dedicated button. The EVF might win favour over the larger, 460k-dot resolution LCD display, were it not for the fact that the latter is angle-adjustable.

The Fuji X-S1's LCD screen can usefully be tilted up or angled down, as on Sony NEX cameras such as the Sony NEX-5N, but sadly not swung outwards from the body through 180-degrees as the screen on, say, the Canon G1 X.

While making low or high angle composition easier, the Fuji X-S1's LCD isn't one for composing self-portraits. We did find it very useful, however, and it encourages greater experimentation - which is exactly what you want.

Performance

A flick of the on/off switch encircling the shutter release button and the Fuji X-S1 powers up in just over two seconds - not exactly lightning-quick then, or comparable to a semi-pro DSLR, but swift enough.

More favourably, a half squeeze of the shutter release button and the determining of focus and exposure is pretty much instantaneous.

Take the shot and a full resolution JPEG file is committed to memory in just over two seconds. Shoot a raw file instead and although you'd expect the writing duration to lengthen, this isn't noticeably the case.

Usefully, the Fuji X-S1 also provides a dedicated raw button to the bottom-right of the back plate, so we didn't have to first fiddle with menu screens to find this option and implement it.

We remain unconvinced that there's a great deal of difference to the naked eye when viewing the images taken in disparate EXR modes, but the film simulation modes on the Fuji X-S1 are another matter.

'Provia' is the default setting, and for us renders colour a little weaker than is actually present in the scene. Selecting the saturation-boosting 'Velvia' mode instead produced a far greater impact, while remaining on the right side of realistic.

This option proved especially useful for primary colours in landscape scenes, making greens more verdant, although if someone in a red jacket appears in your frame, they'll leap out like a sore thumb.

Metering when left to the camera's auto default is competent, delivering even exposures and maintaining both foreground and background detail, even on the dullest of days. In this respect it outshone the Canon G1 X, which needed far more user control to make a decent fist of it.

In terms of natural and low light photography, there's an integral flash with manual activation button on the Fuji X-S1 that can be deployed for fill-in if required, although it's worth mentioning that above ISO 3200 the resolution drops, image size automatically set at Large Medium for JPEGs (rather than Large Fine), and Large Small if reaching the maximum light sensitivity setting.

At top whack ISO 12800, images are noisy and lose detail to the extent that it appears as if you're viewing them through a sheet of muslin.

There is, however, the range has 22 different ISO settings that includes four auto ISO modes, where the user can restrict the camera to going no higher than say ISO 400, ISO 800, ISO 1600 or ISO 3200 - in other words retaining full 12MP resolution captures.

Although there is image noise at ISO 3200, it's at a level we can live with, in that it didn't spoil the image too much.

Sample images

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SINGLE SHOT: This more than acceptable maximum telephoto shot shows what the Fuji X-S1 is capable of pulling out of the bag if the blurring effects of hand wobble can be avoided. This was taken handheld, and in Single Shot mode.

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SUPER MACRO: Conversely, the Fuji X-S1 also boasts a 1cm Super Macro option that enables you to get so close to your quarry that the lens is almost touching it, as here. This pleasingly enables you to fill the frame. Here we've also deployed Velvia film simulation mode to boost the yellows.

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PANORAMA: The Fuji X-S1 automatically stitches together a burst of sequential images produced when panning the camera from left to right in 360 degree panorama mode. Like anything, this requires a few goes, since moving too slow or fast confuses the camera, resulting in a truncated image. Eventually it's possible to achieve a result with real impact (if, inevitably, with the occasionally visible overlap).

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MAX WIDE ANGLE: As with any superzoom, it's important to scrutinise maximum wide-angle and tele settings. Here it's the former that has for us retained detail right into the corners while avoiding obviously prominent barrel distortion or a fish eye effect.

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MAX TELEPHOTO: A maximum zoom (tele) setting shot taken from exactly the same vantage point as our wide-angle image. Again this was taken handheld and required four or five attempts to get pin sharp, or close to it, as here.

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VELVIA: Another shot taken at near the maximum telephoto end of the Fuji X-S1's zoom, here using a fence post in lieu of a tripod for support. The Velvia setting has also been deployed to bring out the richness of colour on the horse.

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SHARP: It's all about image - and the image - with the Fuji X-S1, so this tightly framed subject appeared apt. Detail is sufficiently sharp at full resolution for the viewer to be able to make out the newspaper headlines and text.

Sensitivity and noise

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Verdict

A premium camera that is also a bridge camera, or vice versa, the Fuji X-S1 certainly feels like Fuji's best superzoom yet - even if its focal range doesn't quite match that of, say, the Fuji HS20.

The Fuji X-S1's build quality really makes the strongest impression, knocking spots off rivals such as the Canon PowerShot SX40 HS, Olympus UZ models, Panasonic DMC-FZ48 and FZ150, and even the Nikon Coolpix P500.

In other words, the Fuji X-S1 looks and almost handles like a professional camera, even if in truth its best bet in terms of finding an audience is probably the amateur photo enthusiast with deep pockets, who probably already owns a mid-range DSLR, a decent premium pocket camera, and is now looking for something with a longer lens for a bit more poke.

While just two short years ago Fuji was probably best known for its stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap point-and-shoots, the introduction of the 'HS' bridge models followed by the X series compacts, and now this jack-of-all-trades premium bridge model, shows that it is really raising its game.

Fuji has now got the cameras. Now all it needs is for the photographic community to get back behind it.

We liked

The Fuji X-S1 sports a design and finish nearly up there with the semi-pro DSLR that one could otherwise buy for the same price. If you enjoyed the previous Fuji HS series superzooms then this one, while not overly dissimilar, is a stonker.

We disliked

While the focal range offers a great range of framing opportunities and suggests itself as perfect for candid photography, it's almost impossible to avoid blur when shooting handheld towards maximum zoom, which somewhat defeats its usefulness for those who don't constantly pack a tripod. Also, you'll want to stick at ISO 3200 or below, despite the temptingly wide ISO range on offer.

Final verdict

The Fuji X-S1 is an ideal purchase for the photography nut looking for one camera that can do it all, and prepared to compromise on having image quality not quite on a par with a semi-pro DSLR that one could buy for a similar outlay.

As with any superzoom, it really is about whether you need that whopper of a lens on the front. If you do, then the Fuji X-S1 is presently about the best big zoom bridge camera that's out there.

Bear in mind, however, that while it looks like an SLR it has a compact camera sized sensor.

Overview, design and feel

We all know that Samsung isn't exactly a shrinking violet when it comes to smartphones. It has a wide range of handsets, spanning all price points and covering Android, Windows Phone and even its own Bada operating system.

Samsung has been in the rugged mobile phone arena before, although only with 'dumb' phones such as the Solid Extreme B2100. Now, though, Samsung seems to have finally noticed the success Motorola has had with its Defy and Defy+, and has decided to jump onto the bandwagon with a rugged handset of its own.

The result is the rather heavily named Samsung Galaxy S5690 Xcover Extreme, which you'll probably see referred to as either the Samsung Galaxy Xcover or the Samsung Galaxy Extreme. We're opting for the Samsung Galaxy Xcover for this review.

The Samsung Galaxy Xcover is IP67 certified, meaning it's able to survive under a meter of water for up to 30 minutes, and can withstand dust too. Clearly it needs to be well sealed to perform these feats. The sealing looks relatively subtle, but we'll test it later.

Both the headset slot on the top and the USB slot along the bottom are protected by hinged covers. The USB slot is also quite recessed, and we had trouble getting our usual 'one size fits all' connector to fit into the hole.

The power button on the right and the volume rocker on the left are fairly flush with the chassis, and presumably well protected underneath.

The backplate is held firm with a screw-type lock, and even when you release this you need to prise it away. There's a secondary seal around the battery for double protection. The Samsung Galaxy Xcover's screen, of course, is made from Gorilla Glass.

The handset is a somewhat chunky beast, measuring 121.5 x 65.9 x 11.95mm and weighing 135g. There is a lot of unused space above and below the screen that makes it seem a bit over-engineered, and the 3.65-inch screen looks a little lost.

Beneath the screen are three fairly large buttons for Home, Back and Menu. Yes, they're well sealed against water and dust, but this doesn't in any way affect their comfy feel under the fingers.

Look closely at the volume rocker, incidentally, and you'll see a torch icon. Hold this end of the rocker down and you can toggle the camera LED for use as a, well, as a torch.

Specs-wise, Samsung hasn't really pushed the boat out with the Galaxy Xcover. Android is version 2.3 Gingerbread. The 800MHz processor isn't what we'd call state of the art, and with just 150MB of free storage you'll need a microSD card almost immediately.

The camera is another letdown, offering just 3.1MP of shooting power.

Considering that Clove, who supplied our review sample, is selling the Samsung Galaxy Xcover for £226.80 SIM-free in the UK, then maybe these specs are to be expected. In the US, we found it priced at $385 SIM-free on Amazon.

There's also the usual GPS, Wi-Fi and HSDPA on the Samsung Galaxy Xcover.

Interface

There's nothing very unusual about the way the Samsung Galaxy Xcover works. The user interface is very familiar indeed, with TouchWiz sitting on top of Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

That means that all the home screens have four shortcut icons at the bottom, taking you to Dialler, Contacts, Messaging and Apps. When you switch into the apps menu, for example, the four shortcuts remain, but the Apps shortcut is now replaced by one for the main Home screen.

You start out with three home screens, but if you hit the Home button then choose Edit you can add more, up to a total of seven. This Android 2.3 feature means you can customise the number of home screens to your own taste.

Meanwhile Samsung provides a reasonable range of apps, including Active Applications, which shows you when system resources are getting low and gives a quick link into the Task Manager to close any you don't need.

It also includes a neat weather app that links into AccuWeather for five-day forecasting.

Meanwhile, if you pull down the notification bar on the Samsung Galaxy Xcover, you can access connection settings and even switch the sound to vibration mode and disable automatic screen rotation. It's nothing we haven't seen before, but it is all good stuff.

One user interface aspect we really like is the message notification on the Samsung Galaxy Xcover's lock screen. Just slide it to the left and the handset opens right up into the messaging area.

Contacts and calling

The Samsung Galaxy Xcover supports Samsung's SNS services, which means it can bring in your social network contacts to one place.

Setting up accounts is easy, and you can tell the Android smartphone how often to check for updates.

And you can instruct the handset precisely what updates to check for.

Once you've set up Facebook and Twitter, the contacts area is populated and you can see everyone's little photo by their name, and whether they're a Facebook or Twitter contact.

You can easily search this list using the search box, and if you click through you can see people's contact details and history.

The other way of reaching out to your contacts, of course, is via the Samsung Galaxy Xcover's smart dialler. Call this up and start tapping out a name or number and matches are displayed. There isn't much space for the display, but a little number to the right of the only match that shows tells you how many there are, and tapping it gives you the full list.

In-call services are well thought out, with easy links to hold, the speaker and mute button and to go back to the dial pad.

Call volume on the Samsung Galaxy Xcover was good, although we'd have liked a bit more volume from the speaker, which seems under-powered.

As with TouchWiz, there's nothing here that we haven't seen before, but Samsung lays all the elements out well, and the feature that any phone must get right - calling - is well handled.

Messaging

The Samsung Galaxy Xcover handles your Facebook and Twitter contacts via its Social Hub, which is where it also handles SMS messages.

Initially this looks inviting, but in fact it doesn't mean there are integrated Twitter and Facebook apps on board. Tap either option and you're taken to the mobile web versions of each social network.

Worse than that, while we were automatically logged into our Facebook, the Samsung Galaxy Xcover had the cheek to ask us to log into our Twitter again. It's hardly a fully-integrated solution.

Moreover, there are no dedicated apps for Facebook or Twitter pre-installed. You can get both from the Android Market, of course, but their absence makes the Samsung Galaxy Xcover a fairly socially unaware handset out of the box.

To add a little insult to injury, we had a bit of a problem with sessions expiring and found we had to log in again quite frequently. If this were an ongoing problem with the Samsung Galaxy Xcover we'd be pretty annoyed, since the whole point of seamless social network integration is that it is seamless.

Moving on to SMS text messaging - the other thing the Social Hub handles - this is a rather more pleasant experience. Missed calls are listed here, as well as text messages. Click through to create a new SMS, and the screen offers smart dialling in its search box.

When it comes to typing messages, the keyboard lets things down a bit. You have to pop onto a second screen for punctuation and numbers.

It slows down the rush of fingers across the screen a little.

On the other hand, the threaded message view works well and gives you a reasonably lengthy view of an SMS chat.

The Samsung Galaxy Xcover offers Swype, but you can't turn it on and off from within the keyboard settings. It's in the general settings area under Locale and Text.

This is also where you can turn on and off predictive text and different keyboard types, including old fashioned numerical style keypads and handwriting recognition in portrait mode.

Of course there's email support too, and you can set up accounts very easily by adding in the standard information. It's nice that the keyboard offers '@' and '.com' shortcuts here for quick information entry.

Internet

The Samsung Galaxy Xcover has both Wi-Fi and 7.2Mbps HSDPA, so it ought to be able to cope well with web browsing in simple terms of downloading pages.

And it did, too. It took about 12 seconds to pull down and resolve the TechRadar home page over the network, which is nice going.

The 3.65-inch screen is just about big enough for comfortable web browsing, although its resolution, at 320 x 480 pixels, is some way behind what we'd expect from a higher-end smartphone these days. Still, when we did a double-tap to zoom in, web text was readable and not blocky at all.

Text reflowing isn't what it should be, though. A double-tap to zoom into a TechRadar story we wanted to read didn't result in good news.

We only really got to read without a lot of scrolling when we flipped into landscape mode. What you experience in everyday life may vary depending on the websites you read and how they're originally formatted, but we weren't too happy with what we found.

Moving on to take a look at how the Samsung Galaxy Xcover handled Flash, there was more disappointment. Its 800Mhz processor isn't up to the job, so embedded video was a bit of a no-go area.

On the other hand, there's a nice bookmarks area, which also offers your most visited sites and browsing history, enabling you to get around fairly quickly. To add a bookmark, you just tap a little icon to the right of the search box.

Camera

The camera on the Samsung Galaxy Xcover is something of a disappointment on paper. It shoots stills at just 3.1 megapixels, making it pretty much entry-level as far as today's smartphones are concerned.

The lens is slightly recessed, so it should be able to avoid getting scratched and buffeted by all the rough and tumble the phone is designed to take, and there's a flash.

The flash doesn't work well more than a few feet from your subject, however, and even then it's not great.

Shooting modes are fairly limited, but there is a panorama mode and alongside the usual sports, indoor and night modes there's a mode for photographing text.

Camera controls sit on the edges of the Samsung Galaxy Xcover's screen, where they are easy to find by touch. Because there's no shutter button, you can assign the menu key as a camera shutter, or use the on-screen button, which is just as easy.

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WHITE SKY: You can see at a glance that the camera delivers only average quality photos. It can't cope with the sky in this photo, though the water and the bridge are OK, as is the greenery. Zoom in even a little bit and you notice the pixelation.

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PANORAMA: Panorama mode stitches together eight photos, which are taken in sequence automatically as you pan. The result is a photo 2640 pixels wide x 400 pixels high. The stitch quality isn't too bad, and the process is fairly fast.

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MODES: Moving through the standard Normal, Black and White, Sepia and Negative filters, you see again how badly the camera handles variance in light. The sky wasn't especially bright on our shooting days, either.

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INDOORS: Indoors, the camera copes fairly well with average household lighting conditions. But don't try to take pictures as it gets darker.

Video

The major problem with the Samsung Galaxy Xcover's video camera is that it is limited to shooting at a maximum resolution of 640 x 480. It captures 25.7 frames a second at this resolution.

That's really not good enough for video you want to share, although videos do display well enough on the 640 x 480 screen of the handset itself.

Media

The Music Hub icon on the Samsung Galaxy Xcover's apps list might look appealing and interesting, but in fact it's fairly bland.

The app isn't even pre-installed. It has to be downloaded from the Samsung App store via a link, and as you start the download process the Samsung Galaxy Xcover tells you that you have to change a setting first.

Now, call us churlish, but that might put the odd newbie off.

Still, if you do go ahead you get the Music Hub, which is basically an online store.

If you'd rather play music you already own then you'll need a microSD card, since there's only 150MB of internal storage for any data you might have.

The microSD card slot is under the battery, which under normal circumstances we'd grumble about because it makes hot swapping impossible. But because the Samsung Galaxy Xcover is rugged, the slot needs as much protection as possible, so we'll forgive its location in this case.

The music player is a basic rendition that does its job well enough, but without frills. It has so few frills, in fact, that it could only be bothered to find album art on our microSD card some of the time.

When tunes are playing, there's a playback controller in the notifications area. Just pull that down and whatever app you're in you can move around within a playlist.

The built-in speaker delivers quite a good volume, but there's a bit of distortion to the output at top volumes. Plug in a headset and you get the benefit of Dolby 5.1 sound, which does make a bit of difference, but there's still noticeable distortion even with quite good headphones.

An FM radio adds another facet to audio-based entertainment, and the auto scan kicks in the first time you run the app without you having to ask. That's a nice little feature, and scanning only takes a couple of seconds.

The radio has a round dialler button you can sweep to move through frequencies, or you can simply choose a channel from the presets. There is room to store four favourite stations at the bottom of the screen.

When it comes to video playback, the Samsung Galaxy Xcover isn't hugely capable. It can cope with MP4, H.264 and H.263. It played our samples without jerking, though, and colour rendition was good.

Battery life and connectivity

The Samsung Galaxy Xcover has a 1500mAh battery, which is pretty generous and should, on paper, provide a relatively long life. We've not seen an official battery life quote from Samsung, but elsewhere we've seen it quoted as good for 11 hours talktime on 3G and up to 640 hours of 3G standby.

We found the battery to live up to the usual smartphone expectation of delivering about a day's worth of life between charges, but what you get will of course very much depend on how you use the Samsung Galaxy Xcover.

When we left it on overnight just with Wi-Fi on, it lost about a tenth of its charge just ticking over. Playing music for an hour lost it about 20 per cent.

And over a two-and-a-half hour period when we used the video camera, played music continuously and sent and received emails over Wi-Fi indoors and 3G outdoors, the battery drained down to close to half of its power.

So, we reckon if you use the Samsung Galaxy Xcover on a daily commute, you ought to budget for an afternoon power boost, and another in the evening.

Connectivity options don't run to the likes of DLNA and HDMI - this isn't an expensive enough smartphone to warrant those.

But Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are of course here, HSDPA supports 7.2Mbps downloads and 5.76Mbps uploads, and those who like their location-aware services will be pleased to see A-GPS is here too.

In addition, you can use the Samsung Galaxy Xcover as a portable Wi-Fi hotspot.

Maps and apps

With GPS and Google Maps on the Samsung Galaxy Xcover, mapping and navigation is nicely taken care of. There are plenty of information layers available these days, such as satellite and traffic data, and Google Maps often proves itself really useful when we are out and about.

Samsung has added a few apps to the Android standard set. It's a pity the nice Notes app from the Samsung Galaxy Y isn't here, but then you can very easily find oodles of notes apps in the Android Market.

Polaris Office looks like it's installed because there's an icon present, but like the Music Hub we mentioned earlier, you have to download it from the Samsung App store.

It is free, and we suppose this ensures you have the latest version, but the download process is a bit of a pain.

Once you have it, Polaris Office enables you to create documents that are compatible with Word, Excel and PowerPoint, as well as edit existing documents.

There's also a books app, which gives you access to ebooks including a good few for free, although the idea is really that you buy ebooks. When we looked, there were plenty of new titles on offer.

There's also a little workout helper called Cardio Trainer, but if you are into using your phone for fitness you can find better apps in the Android Market.

With both the Android Market and Samsung Apps - Samsung's own app store - on board, you've plenty of scope for beefing up the apps content of this smartphone.

Rugged features

We've noted that the Samsung Galaxy Xcover is classed as a rugged smartphone, yet it looks quite attractive.

The USB and headset slots have protective hinged covers, the backplate is held down by a screw, and inside the back there's a seal around the edge and a second seal around the battery.

SIM and microSD card slots are under the battery. To cap it off, the screen is made from Gorilla Glass.

We subjected the Samsung Galaxy Xcover to a few tests to find out how rugged it really is. We dropped it semi-accidentally a few times, including against the edges of metal filing cabinets, onto pavements and down the stairs. There wasn't a scratch on the chassis.

We tried to scrape scratches on the screen with a knife. No joy.

We took the Samsung Galaxy Xcover on a run, stowing it in the sweaty back pocket of our training bottoms, and it weathered the storm. We even sat the handset under a running tap for 15 minutes, and it survived that too, although a little water did seep under the backplate.

Hands on gallery

Official gallery

Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy Xcover is a rugged Android smartphone, and in that it has only two real competitors - the Motorola Defy and the newer Defy+, so the comparisons are inevitable.

The build doesn't feel quite as solid as that of the Defy, and the general specifications aren't as advanced either.

The Motorola Defy+ has a 3.7-inch 480 x 844 pixel screen vs a 3.65-inch 320 x 480 screen on the Samsung Galaxy Xcover.

The Defy+ camera shoots at 5MP as opposed to 3.1MP here. The Defy + processor runs at 1GHz as opposed to 800MHz on the Galaxy Xcover.

And there's no price difference to mirror that, with the Defy+ currently costing exactly the same as the Samsung Galaxy Xcover, priced at £225/$385.

We liked

The Samsung Galaxy Xcover looks neat - its bronze sides really help it stand out from the crowd.

The microSD card is under the battery, where it's best protected from water and dust.

The camera LED can be used as a torch thanks to a feature added to the volume rocker.

We disliked

The build feels a bit on the plasticy side, and there was a little water seepage under the backplate in our 'run under the tap' test.

Web browsing isn't too great, with poor text reflow and no Flash support.

The handset feels a bit big in the hand considering its screen size, and it is in particular a bit on the tall side.

Screen resolution is on the low side for a modern smartphone.

Camera resolution is quite low, at 3.1MP, and video resolution is woeful, at 640 x 480.

Final verdict

Samsung has made rugged handsets before, and not done too bad, but this is the first time the company has brought rugged features to an Android smartphone, and we aren't all that excited, because the general specifications are average rather than great.

If we were choosing a rugged smartphone right now, we'd choose the Motorola Defy+ rather than the Samsung Galaxy Xcover. Sorry, Samsung.

Apple iBooks Author

Amazon's Kindle, Barnes and Noble's Nook, and even Apple's iBooks have been working on moving us away from reading physical books and embracing the digital revolution.

But until now, there was very little to convince us how good an idea this could be, since the digital versions looked very much like their real-world counterparts, right down to the page turning effect.

You'd save a lot of weight if you tended to carry a few books with you, but no title appeared to offer the limitless potential of a true digital book, something more akin to what you can achieve with apps, for instance.

All this and more is what Apple is trying to accomplish with its new content creation app, iBooks Author. Its aim is to revolutionise modern textbooks by bringing interactivity to the learning experience.

Not only can you add images to your pages, the reader can zoom in or out of them. You can insert Keynote slides or movies that can either be viewed embedded inside a page or full-screen. There's even the possibility of creating short quizzes to test your reader's knowledge retention.

You'd think that all this would require a lot of programming knowledge, but that's the beauty of iBooks Author: it's incredibly simple to use, and if you're familiar with Apple's iWork suite, you'll feel right at home within its interface.

It's a bit like a cross between the iWork apps Pages and Keynote, but you can't change the page format in any way: it's designed solely to be used on an iPad – even iPhones and iPod touches are left out.

On template

Just like other iWork programs, you start with a choice of template, six of which are offered by default, although you can create your own if you so choose.

You can write straight into iBooks Author, but it's also easy to import content from a Pages or Word document. Text is brought in seamlessly, but more complex formatting and embedded images can cause problems with the layout. The best option is to bring in the text then add the multimedia in iBooks Author.

Inserting media is child's play: you have a Media window from which you can locate photos, movies and music already stored on your Mac. Applying interactivity is done with the use of one of seven widgets, including being able to insert HTML dashcode applets, like those used to create Dashboard widgets on your Mac.

You can also preview your work as you design it: connect an iPad to your Mac, click the Toolbar's Preview icon and your book will be transferred across the USB cable for you to check. A purple 'Proof' banner will appear on the cover of your ebook and you'll be able to browse through it and interact with your widgets to make sure they all work as expected.

Once you're happy with the results, you can export your work in the iBooks format (or as a PDF or text file, but you'll obviously lose all the interactivity). That iBook can then be transferred to any iPad. It's a fantastic means of creating your own interactive documents and could do wonders in the classroom.

If you'd rather profit from your endeavour, you'll need to respect the program's licence agreement which states that you have to make your iBook available exclusively on the iBook Store (the content remains yours of course, so you're free to redesign your book using a different program and sell it elsewhere).

You'll need to acquire an ISBN number (an industry-standard code designed to catalogue all publications), and if you're not a US resident, you'll also need a unique reference number from the IRS. However, free books can be made available anywhere without such restrictions.

First iterations

Despite all the things this app allows you to do, and how it will empower teachers and even home-schoolers to design their own textbooks, it's a 1.0 product, which means it's a little rough around the edges at times.

Aside from the occasional glitches that prevent you from altering the content in any way (a quick restart of the app solves that problem – thank goodness for Lion's Autosave feature!) there are some odd inconsistencies.

For instance, the whole interface is designed around text boxes. You can link them so that your words flow seamlessly from one box to the other. However, in order for that to work, new linkable text boxes must be created with the help of a text box already present on your page. Text Boxes created from scratch by clicking on the relevant toolbar icon can't be linked to others.

Worse still is iBooks Author's draconian restrictions when it comes to video formats. Only H.264 files are tolerated, but not all H.264 files are created equal. Try dragging a video clip you shot on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad and it'll be rejected, even though we all know Apple's iOS products save their footage in H.264. If you export an iMovie project on your Mac, it's the same problem (you have to use the Share command to create a kosher version).

What's worse is that files made with HandBrake, a video format conversion tool, or created with the excellent screen capture program ScreenFlow, won't work either – even though you can play back these files directly on your iPad, iBook Author refuses to. To make them work, you must open them up in QuickTime X and export them for the iPad. It seems like an unnecessary and unintuitive step to have to take.

This run-around is far from what we're used to from Apple. But despite these problems, iBooks Author is an amazing program which enables anyone to create a polished interactive ebook in little time.

If you can live with the licence agreement, you can have a lot of fun engaging with your students or customers. As long as they all own iPads, of course.

Overview, design and feel

Flying the Samsung-branded flag for the mid-range smartphone market is the Samsung Galaxy W, a handset also known as the Samsung GT-I8150.

Having taken the high-end smartphone market by storm with the Samsung Galaxy S and subsequent Samsung Galaxy S2, Korean tech giant Samsung is now intent on dominating the full mobile phone scene with a flurry of boundary-pushing handsets.

With a 3.7-inch form factor and Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system, the Samsung Galaxy W pushes the boundaries of its lower mid-range smartphone price point.

The phone features a strong 1.4GHz single-core processor, offering the grunt to power a handset that also packs a 5MP rear-mounted camera, 720p HD video recording capabilities, 512MB of RAM and a flurry of connectivity options.

Touting an array of specs comparable to former top high-end Android smartphone the HTC Desire, the Samsung Galaxy W perfectly demonstrates exactly how quickly the smartphone scene is evolving.

The Samsung Galaxy W is set to duke it out with other 3.7-inch Android smartphones such as the Motorola Defy+, while its 1.4GHz Qualcomm processor is the same speed as that of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S, and faster than the 1.2GHz offering on the BlackBerry Torch 9860, both of which cost around £100 more than the Samsung Galaxy W, priced at around £249.99 on Pay As You Go.

A relatively compact handset, the Samsung Galaxy W - in which the 'W' stands for 'Wonder' - features an aesthetically pleasing form factor, with the handset's 3.7-inch WVGA LCD capacitive touchscreen boasting a 480 x 800p resolution.

The smartphone's interface enables you to seamlessly access desired content and use the extensive array of app-based content on the pre-loaded Android Market.

Offering a lot of bang for your buck, the Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth 3.0 and GPS-enabled Samsung Galaxy W lands with a spec far superior to that of a number of its similarly priced competitors.

Lining up at a respectable 11.5mm thick, just 0.2mm thicker than the HTC Sensation, the Samsung Galaxy W's round edged design might not be first in line for any beauty awards, but it is a form that in no way offends on an aesthetic front.

With the handset's rigid and compact design resulting in a 114.7g weight, the Samsung Galaxy W is just over a gram lighter than the 116g heft of its 4.3-inch Super AMOLED-touting high-end sibling, the Samsung Galaxy S2.

Relatively well crafted with little flex or distortion when put under extreme pressure, the two-toned body of the Samsung Galaxy W is let down considerably by the over-apparent join between the main shell and the removable back plate, which runs like a parting seam around eight tenths of the handset's edging.

In typical Samsung Galaxy fashion, the W's removable back panel is scarily thin and unnervingly delicate. When removing it, it seems so fragile that you fear a snap any time you take it off to replace the SIM, battery or well-hidden microSD storage card.

Comfortable and unobtrusive in the hand, the Samsung Galaxy W features a design that fails to accentuate its key features. Although not noticeably overpowering at first glance, the phone's bezel can at times make the device's screen feel quite narrow, detracting from the otherwise pleasant visual offering.

Although not offering an on-screen experience with as much pop or attention-grabbing vibrancy as its high-end rivals, the Samsung Galaxy W features a more than acceptable screen. The capacitive touchscreen display sports the same dimensions and 480 x 800p resolution as the ClearBlack AMOLED offering on the Windows Phone-powered Nokia Lumia 710.

Accentuating the handset's smooth design traits, the USB connector-come-charging port is hidden beneath a sliding tab, a move that aids the appealing aesthetic but can make it fiddly to open and access.

Weighing down heavily on the side of the touchscreen revolution, the Samsung Galaxy W features just three physical buttons, with a raised home button landing alongside well-placed volume controls and a power switch.

Everything else is touch-based, including the Android standard back button and option key, something that might not appease traditionalists but certainly bolsters the smartphone's physical appeal.

Interface

As with virtually all Android 2.3 Gingerbread-powered handsets, the Samsung Galaxy W interface is intuitive and easy to follow, with the standard array of Google apps and widgets residing on the seven available home screens.

As with all Samsung Galaxy devices, the handset comes packing the company's TouchWiz user interface for a further enhanced, joyfully simple user experience at all times.

Thanks largely to the 1.4GHz Qualcomm processor and 512MB of RAM, there is little judder or stilted transition when switching between this collection of home screens, or indeed when jumping back and forth between menus.

With easy, highly responsive scrolling controls, the Samsung Galaxy W is extremely user-friendly. Its simplistic layout and positive use of Android ensure that both complete novices and relative veterans of the Google operating system are able to quickly navigate their way through the grid-based app menu or home screens.

Requiring little initial setting up or unnecessary faff, the Samsung Galaxy W offers you the most likely desired content in prime positions direct from the box, with access to the Android Market clearly labelled, enabling you to further fill the handset with other content.

Contacts and calling

Arguably still the most important aspect of any smartphone, no matter how many fancy bells and whistles it plays host to, is its ability to make calls with a strong, clear, interruption-free connection.

As impressive and high achieving as some of the Samsung Galaxy W's more superfluous features might be, as a standard pocket blower, the phone falls a little short of expectations.

While it might be easy to navigate through the calling process, once connected, calls often sound quite airy and distant, with a little background distortion and muffling causing those on the other end of the line to sound quiet and isolated compared to other handsets.

Despite these audio quality issues, during our period testing the phone we experienced no unexpected dropped calls or complete loss of signal.

On the contacts front, thanks to its Android innards, the Samsung Galaxy W offers a simple and seamless user experience, with an intuitive process requiring no explanation to access, modify, search and add contacts and personal details as desired.

With communication histories for individual contacts easily accessed via a run of shortcut menu options within the contacts book, communications between those in your address book is further bolstered by the ability to sync with connected social media accounts and assign contact images based on Facebook profile pictures.

Further enhancing the user experience and making it easy to find desired contacts in what could potentially be an otherwise highly cluttered mass of names and numbers, all contacts can be organised easily into groups. The standard group names of 'Co-workers', 'Family' and 'Friends' can be further enhanced by the creation and self titling of further groups, a process that is neither arduous nor time consuming.

Messaging

A core pillar of any modern smartphone is it messaging capabilities. Here the Samsung Galaxy W once again covers all the basics and most common extras but fails to push the boundaries to set itself apart from the crowd of similarly priced devices, such as the Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray and some full QWERTY-touting BlackBerry handsets.

In typical Android fashion, messages are simple and easy to read, with a well sized and spaced font enabling quick absorption of incoming content, be it via SMS or email.

One of the Samsung Galaxy W's stumbling blocks while constructing messages - an issue that rolls across to its search and browser functions - is its slightly cramped and narrow-lettered keyboard in portrait mode.

Thanks to its full touchscreen interface, the Samsung Galaxy W's QWERTY keyboard offering is that of the Android software and TouchWiz UI. While not offensive or cumbersome to use, the touch QWERTY input will result in many users with average to larger-sized digits repeatedly finding themselves correcting errors and accidentally pressing multiple keys.

Although this issue is less apparent when holding the phone in landscape orientation, Samsung has largely corrected the issue itself with the inclusion of the Swype input system. This enables you to simply drag your finger between letters with the software then filling in the likely desired words - a system that, more often that not, works.

Continuing its run of user-friendly features, both email and SMS messaging services feature prominently on the handset's main home screen direct from the box, with MMS messages able to be sent via a simple tap on the attachments option while in the messaging menus.

Internet

Quick and simple to connect to a wireless internet network, the Samsung Galaxy W is a joy to use as a source for internet browsing and online content perusal.

With strong connectivity and fast load times over both Wi-Fi and 3G connections, the Samsung Galaxy W hosts a well-sized URL input box and a handy bookmarks tab.

Enhancing the user experience and cutting down on irritating lag, the Samsung Galaxy W's browser features extremely quick image and text rendering, enabling you to pinch to zoom in on desired content and have it available in an easy to absorb manner in a fraction of a second, for an uninterrupted browsing experience.

Requiring no unnecessary user input, the full web experience is open to you, with the phone's integrated browser capable of handling both HTML 5 and Adobe Flash content, including Flash videos, direct from the box. This further bolsters the handset's already impressive web credentials.

Easily navigated via the standard touchscreen controls, the handset's Android-necessitated back button acts as further navigation through previously viewed web pages.

Unlike most computer-based browsers, however, the Samsung Galaxy W offers no means for scrolling forward through pages if users have already skipped back. Although not a catastrophic omission, this feature is sorely missed when required.

Camera

Sporting a 5-megapixel camera on the rear, the Samsung Galaxy W's photographic capabilities are rather impressive, with sharp detail and strong colour management across a range of lighting conditions and subject matters.

Although 8MP snappers will no doubt soon be filtering down into the mid-range smartphones, the Samsung Galaxy W's current 5MP camera will fulfil the needs of most users.

Quick to focus in good lighting conditions, the handset's camera is somewhat let down by its low light abilities, with heavily grainy and noisy images the result when shooting without the flash.

Use the LED flash and the results are pleasantly surprising. Unlike many handsets that offer over-exposed, whited out images when shooting with flash, the Samsung Galaxy W provides images of impeccable colour and contrast management with the additional light source well distributed to accent fine details and highlight desired areas of interest.

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The one downfall of using the Samsung Galaxy W's camera with the flash on, however, is the heavily increased focusing times, with the camera's incorporated autofocus feature repeatedly second guessing itself before finally agreeing on a point of focus.

Adding to the handset's rear-mounted snapper abilities is a second - VGA - camera on the front. As with most forward-facing phone cameras, the Samsung Galaxy W's VGA offering provides heavily grainy end results, offering little inspiration and creating little desire to use the handset's possible video calling abilities.

Video

As well as shooting strong 5MP still images, the Samsung Galaxy W's rear-mounted camera captures impressive 720p HD video content at up to 30fps. Impressive stats on paper, the handset's recording capabilities are rather hit and miss, with performances slightly less than the quality expected when taking into account only the cover notes.

On the positive side, the Samsung Galaxy W possesses strong light management with its video content, like it does for still shots, making good use of natural light when available and quickly adjusting to varying conditions of light and shade when recording.

On a more negative, note the handset's audio recording abilities let the visuals down, with the accompanying sound often tinny with a static air that lacks clarity and the crisp, clear sounds that are expected.

On the design front, the high, central positioning of the lens makes shooting content a tricky task when trying to avoid unwieldy fingertips sneaking into shots.

Media

Featuring less than 2GB of available internal storage, the Samsung Galaxy W hasn't been created with high-performance, storage-heavy media in mind. Although these storage limitations can be easily overcome with an additional microSD card, up to 32GB in size, some of the handset's other media pitfalls are harder to overlook.

The biggest offender on the media front is the Samsung Galaxy W's audio abilities. An inbuilt speaker drastically lacks depth, producing audio and video playback that misses deep, bass-heavy tones. Instead it replaces rich, premium audio output with tinny notes and voices that are almost warped when watching video content with any amount of dialogue.

Furthermore, despite a number of handsets, such as the HTC Sensation XE, now coming boxed with a pair of impressive in-ear audio buds to further enhance your sound experience, the Samsung Galaxy W lands packaged with a pair of poorly constructed, tacky plastic buds. These offer no reassurance of quality at first glance, and their performance matches their unappealing physical appearance.

Aside from these audio issues, the Samsung Galaxy W's 3.7-inch screen offers a pleasant base on which to enjoy video content, with the Google-brimmed handset coming pre-loaded with the YouTube app, enabling quick access to hours of video content on the move.

Other media offerings on the Samsung Galaxy W include the incorporated FM radio and the ability to perform minor edits, such as cropping and simple contrast alterations to images shot with the device.

Battery life and connectivity

One of the often maligned features of modern smartphones, the Samsung Galaxy W's battery is highly impressive, with the handset breezing past the hump of a single day's heavy use and easily getting through a second day without the need for further charging.

Thanks to its 1500 mAh Li-Ion battery, the Samsung Galaxy W touts a claimed eight hour 20 minute talktime life, with 3G enabled, and up to 420 hours standby time. Both figures ring true, with a day's regular use across calls, web-based activity and media features leaving the phone with around half of its juice still to spare.

Despite landing at roughly half the price of some of its top-end competitors such as the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich-packing Samsung Galaxy Nexus and the Apple iPhone 4S, the Samsung Galaxy W features a far superior battery life, thanks to its more conservative feature offerings.

On a connectivity front, the Samsung Galaxy W boasts a vast array of options, with the standard Wi-Fi and GPS offerings further bolstered by the integrated USB connector and Bluetooth 3.0 options.

While the handset is fast to access wireless networks and boasts strong connectivity once signed up, the phone can also be used as a Wi-Fi hotspot, to offer wireless internet connectivity to a number of further Wi-Fi-hunting gadgets. Simple to set up, the personal Wi-Fi hotspot feature is intuitive to manage, with resulting connectivity providing strong, speedy coverage.

Maps and apps

Thanks to its Google-branded Android innards, the Samsung Galaxy W comes pre-installed with Google Maps and the service's standard array of location and navigation-based features. Although a handy service to have lined up on your handset's home screen, the inclusion of Google Maps is no great surprise, with the software typical of virtually all other Android devices.

In terms of apps, the Samsung Galaxy W boasts two main outlets for users to fill their devices with post-production content and handy tools, games and the usual utilities, with the standard Android Market followed up by the Samsung Apps offering.

Replicating much of the app selection from the official Google store, the Samsung Apps outlet sees a number of apps land with considerably higher price tags than when bought via the Android Market. A prime example of this is Bejewled 2. Available from the Android Market for just £1.99, the same game from Samsung Apps costs £3.00.

While many will turn to the Android Market and Samsung Apps outlet for additional content, the Samsung Galaxy W comes pre-loaded with a hearty selection of app-based features that enhance the user experience and entertain.

Covering all bases with a selection of games, utilities and business-assisting apps, the pre-loaded offering, which features the likes of The Sims 3, Hangman, Polaris Office, YouTube and the standard Samsung Social, Music and Game hubs, often presents you with a tester of what can be further expanded and fully used for an additional price.

Hands on gallery

Official gallery

Verdict

Overall a very strong mid-range smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy W is not without faults. Combining strong hardware with strong software, a few cracks appear where the two join.

While the handset isn't the pristine, perfect product that some would hope, it is, however, one that pushes the boundaries of its sub-market expectations.

With a £249.99 PAYG price tag, or available for free on contracts as low as £25 per month, the Samsung Galaxy W proves great value for money, repeatedly exceeding expectations where it counts - in overall base performance.

We liked

Largely well designed, well constructed and well finished with Android 2.3 and the Samsung TouchWiz user interface, the Samsung Galaxy W surpasses the core abilities of a number of its closest competitors. It even rivals the performance capabilities of some handsets around£100 more expensive.

The handset's 1.4GHz Qualcomm processor makes the Samsung Galaxy W a joy to use for standard tasks, with smooth, quick transitions between applications enhancing the user experience and bringing some fluidity to the phone.

Elsewhere, the Samsung Galaxy W's browser is fast and simple to use, bolstering the online experience, while the 5MP rear-mounted camera offers up a surprise with its strong light management while shooting both stills and video content.

We disliked

Let down by the inbuilt speaker, the Samsung Galaxy W isn't a device targeted at the hardcore media-absorbing market. Nor is the smartphone particularly strong on the calling front, with distorted connections a considerable bugbear when using the handset on a long-term basis.

Final verdict

Strong in some areas, weak in others, the Samsung Galaxy W is a mash-up of the best and slightly below par offerings on the mid-range smartphone market for those users not yet ready to make the jump to the high-end and costly Samsung Galaxy S2.

A very impressive battery life far exceeds those of its higher-end, higher-priced rivals, while the intuitive interface and speedy processor offer a strong introduction to the smartphone scene for those who are adopting the well-priced Samsung Galaxy W as their first trip away from feature phones.

With the numerous benefits outweighing the negatives, the Samsung Galaxy W is an impressive offering for its price point, with premium components creating a strong all-round user experience.

Overview

It's fair to say that Kogan is not - yet - a household name in the UK.

But if the Australian brand's LED55 TV (also known as the Kogan KULED551HDAA) is anything to go by, this situation could be about to change fast.

Here's the deal. The Kogan LED55, as the no-nonsense part of its name suggests, is a 55-inch TV that uses LED technology. This isn't new, of course, but here's the fun bit: the LED55 can be yours direct from Kogan's UK website for just £999. Including free shipping.

The expectation from such a price/screen size/technology equation has to be that the Kogan LED55 is going to be a basic television. Yet actually, a scan of its specifications suggests that it's got quite a lot going on.

For instance, it's got a Freeview HD tuner on board, showing that Kogan has taken the trouble to localise its flagship TV for the UK market. It's also got 100Hz processing, suggesting that maybe it's going to spare at least a thought for the small matter of picture quality.

Then there's its built-in PVR functionality for recording from the tuners to a USB storage device, while sound comes courtesy of an SRS TruSurround processing system.

Even the fact that it uses Edge LED lighting to illuminate the 1080p pixels in its monster screen is significant. It's good to know, too, that the other sets in Kogan's current UK range - including the 42-inch KULED42XHDAA, 46-inch KULED461HDAA and 32-inch LEDBD32, the latter of which has a built-in Blu-ray player - all use LED lighting too.

Basically, most things about the Kogan LED55 sound too good to be true.

Features

The Kogan LED55 isn't exactly the prettiest TV you'll ever see. But nor is it ugly - not by any stretch of the imagination.

Its bezel may be a little wider and more angular than most televisions, but the glossy black finish is decent enough. It feels a little 'squeaky' with its build quality during set up, but once it's positioned on its heavy-duty, crystal-finished stand, it looks robust enough.

Some budget TVs tend to forget that most people want a very slim TV these days. But here again the Kogan LED55 gently impresses, with its respectable depth of just 50mm (off its stand).

A quest for connections uncovers a minor but certainly not deal-breaking disappointment in the shape of three HDMI inputs rather than the four now commonly found on big flatscreen TVs.

But you also get some pretty handy compensation from a USB port and its ability to both play back AVI, MP4, DivX4, DivX5, XVID, MP3, WMA, JPEG and BMP files, and record broadcast programming to USB HDDs up to 1TB in size.

As usual, you shouldn't really consider such USB recording systems to be a replacement for a more heavy-duty recording option, but it's great for 'pausing live TV' or simple timeshifting.

There's also a D-Sub PC port for simple computer connection, and a LAN port to support the TV's integrated Freeview HD tuner. It's a pity that this LAN port can't also be used for either taking the TV online or accessing files stored on a networked PC. But then the Kogan LED55 does, after all, only cost £999.

As noted earlier, the Kogan LED55's screen specifications seem mostly quite promising - especially its use of Edge LED lighting rather than CCFL, and the presence of 100Hz processing to reduce potential motion blurring from the 6.5ms response time panel.

However, it's not all plain sailing on the spec front, because neither the claimed 320cd/m2 of brightness nor the maximum 40,000:1 claimed dynamic contrast ratio stack up very well against the sort of numbers routinely trotted out by the more established TV brands. Hopefully Kogan is just being more honest.

Heading into the TV's on-screen menus, it has to be said that there isn't a great deal going on. You get fairly perfunctory - though actually not horrifically calibrated - presets; a trio of colour temperature presets; multiple levels of noise reduction; and actually that's kind of it.

The only attempt to cater for enthusiasts is the presence of a fairly rudimentary colour adjustment system that enables you to adjust between 1 and 100 the levels of the red, green and blue colour elements.

This relative paucity of set up flexibility is really to be expected on such a cheap 55-inch TV, though. And in some ways the only truly aggravating absentee is a dedicated backlight control to accompany the basic brightness adjustment.

Picture quality

It probably won't shock you too much to hear that the Kogan LED55 is hardly a classic performer where picture quality is concerned. After all, lest you've forgotten, it does only cost £999 for a 55-inch Edge LED TV. But is the Kogan LED55 good enough for its money?

Let's start with the good news. First, the picture is surprisingly bright, certainly brighter than the claimed 320cd/m2 brightness figure would have led us to expect. More proof - as if it were needed - that manufacturers' quoted specs really aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

Colours are quite boldly portrayed as well, and combine with what appears - initially at least - to be a pretty satisfying black level response. This latter attribute is a real surprise, since it tends to be pretty much a given with cheap LCD TVs that black levels are average, at best.

Yet here, aside from occasional moments when very dark scenes seem to take on a slight bluish glow, black colours on the Kogan LED55 really do look quite black, with relatively minimal amounts of the usual low-contrast greyness.

It should be said here that you'll need to rein in the Kogan LED55's brightness setting quite considerably (as low as 30-40 on its 1-100 scale) to get the best black level response. But even with brightness this low, you're not left with a picture that's devoid of vibrancy and punch.

The Kogan LED55's motion handling is in some ways better than is typical with budget TVs, too - at least in the sense that the usual motion blur is only moderate rather than excessive.

Presumably this is down at least in part to the TV's 100Hz processing. However, this processing is also responsible for the Kogan LED55's single most aggravating flaw. Because while it might reduce motion blur, it also generates - especially when watching Blu-rays, oddly - some very obvious and distracting unwanted side-effects.

These include haloing around the edges of moving objects, flickering over fast-moving objects and general patches of shimmering and distortion.

Basically, the Kogan LED55's 100Hz engine is a bit of a mess. So you should just turn it off. Um, except you can't, because for some reason, Kogan has decided not to give you the option to deactivate it, so you're left with it on permanently, warts and all. This is a mistake.

Another issue with the Kogan LED55's pictures finds the backlight looking a bit inconsistent. All four corners of the screen, in particular, exhibit clear 'jets' of light creepage, unless you turn the brightness level right down to 30 or less. But there are other more subtle areas of inconsistency too.

Next to cause a little trouble are the Kogan LED55's colours. They're quite punchy, but they're not especially natural or subtle when it comes to portraying minute tonal shifts.

These issues are particularly apparent with skin tones, which look a bit yellowish or wan, as well as looking unnaturally smooth and monotone, with none of the subtle colour nuances and facial minutiae available that stop people looking like mannequins on better-specified TVs.

It doesn't help the skin tone issues, either, that the screen isn't particularly crisp when handling HD material. You can see a step up from standard definition pictures, but the step up isn't as pronounced as it ideally would be on a Full HD 55-inch LED TV. Ramping up the set's sharpness setting can improve the sense of crispness, but only at the expense of an increase in picture noise.

Very bright scenes, meanwhile, look a bit flared out at times, as if the screen can't resolve small differences in white tones.

Input lag measurements from the Kogan LED55 also fluctuate between a respectable 40ms and a disappointing 70ms, resulting in an average figure of 52ms that appeared to marginally reduce our Call of Duty skills.

Sound, value and ease of use

Sound quality

Although the Kogan LED55's carriage of SRS TruSurround processing is quite an eye-catching feature for a budget TV, it does, of course, still remain the case that the SRS system only works effectively if it's unleashed through a decently powerful speaker system.

And it's no great surprise to find the Kogan LED55 without enough audio heat to bring the SRS system - or a potent action film soundtrack - to life.

It must be stressed that it's not a shockingly bad sounding TV by any means, and it's able to cope reasonably cleanly with 'normal'-volume, daytime TV stuff. But it certainly sounds harsh and compressed - with too much treble emphasis - when put under any serious pressure.

Value

Value is tricky to judge, really. Clearly on the one hand £999 is remarkably cheap for a 55-inch Edge LED TV. But, on the other hand, there are a few ways in which you only get what you pay for with the Kogan LED55. Ultimately it's probably fair to say that the Kogan LED55's price is more or less right.

Ease of use

The Kogan LED55 is a bit of a mixed bag in this respect. On the upside, its on-screen menus, while certainly unusual in their presentation and design, are actually pretty straightforward to navigate. Part of this is down to the fact that none of the five sub-menus you can cycle through by pushing right on the remote actually have many features in.

But the no-nonsense, clear text and basic organisational principles are effective enough and should present no major challenges to even the most technophobic of television buyers.

The weak point where ease of use is concerned comes from the set's remote control. It's a deeply utilitarian affair, in that its layout and shape looks and feels like one of those universal remote designs commonly found with budget TVs in place of something that's in any way adapted to the TV's particular feature set and on-screen menu structure.

Some of the buttons are too small for comfort, too, but worst of all is how unresponsive the remote control is. It could be because its squishy buttons don't respond well enough to your presses or, more likely, because the cone of responsiveness of the IR receptor on the TV just isn't wide enough to pick up signals as readily as it should.

The result is much frustration, as time and again the TV fails to respond to remote commands at the first try, requiring you to lean forward or sideways to get your desired result.

It's worth adding, too, that you get no paper or CD manual with the Kogan LED55. Instead you just get a bit of paper with a link to an online PDF manual. This is eco-friendly and all that, but it's not necessarily convenient for everyone.

Verdict

It's a brave new brand indeed that tries to crack the UK TV marketplace right now. But Australian brand Kogan is having a pretty full-blooded stab at it, especially now that it's got a genuine flagship proposition on its hands in the shape of the Kogan LED55.

This 55-inch set is no ultra-basic lump of plastic, despite its low price. It's got a Freeview HD tuner, it uses Edge LED lighting, it's got a Full HD resolution, and it's even got 100Hz processing to help pictures out.

Its performance isn't the horror show that we might have expected for its money, either. Its contrast range and brightness in particular are good enough to render pictures perfectly watchable. But there are also enough problems to remind you that the set is, after all, a budget model.

We liked

The Kogan LED55 is remarkably affordable for a 55-inch LED TV, despite having a respectable core spec sheet. Its Freeview HD tuner is appreciated considering the TV's affordability, as is its facility for recording to USB drives. Black level response is better than usual for the budget world, too, and pictures are generally vibrant and dynamic.

We disliked

The Kogan LED55's 100Hz system is of a pretty low quality, causing obvious unwanted side-effects. And, annoyingly, you can't turn it off.

There are also backlight consistency problems unless you really slash the television's brightness output, and colour tones don't look especially natural or subtly toned. HD pictures don't look particularly crisp either, and skin tones tend to look plasticky and unrealistic.

Finally, while the TV's audio is mostly OK, loud scenes can start to sound quite shrill.

Final verdict

Kogan has certainly unleashed a startling statement of intent with its LED55. Its 55-inch size shows that the brand has the AV ambitions to take on the more established TV brand names, and its lowly price shows that it's prepared to appeal to our wallets.

Kogan has even managed to underline its raw 'big screen, small price' hook by giving the LED55 a few unexpected features, such as a Freeview HD tuner and 100Hz processing.

Perhaps inevitably, though, while it's better than expected in the contrast and brightness departments, the Kogan LED55 falls short of its more established rivals with its performance, thanks to some backlight consistency concerns and some troubling 100Hz processing that leaves obvious distracting side effects and can't be turned off.

In fact, this 100Hz problem is so frustrating that it ultimately led to the Kogan LED55 only ending up with an overall score of three stars rather than the three and a half it might otherwise have claimed.

Overview, design and feel

Differentiating yourself from the pack means making something spectacular…or just different. With the LG DoublePlay, a few radical hardware changes translate to an unusual, and sometimes more productive, experience.

The phone is perhaps most similar to the Kyocera Echo (or maybe even the Nintendo 3DS) but falls short of the amazing Samsung Google Nexus and Apple iPhone 4S which function as more traditional phones. At the very least, the DoublePlay tries something new.

The most unusual feature is the phone's two screens, one main 3.5-inch touchscreen running at 320 x 480p resolution and a second 2-inch, 240 x 320p screen.

The two-screen approach, like the 3DS or the Echo, lets you run an app in one screen and see app icons in another. Or, you can see your main Facebook page and chat with someone on the second screen.

As you can imagine, having two screens means putting up with some bulk. The phone weighs 192 grams, or about 50 grams heavier than the Galaxy Nexus. At 64mm thick, the DoublePlay feels like it could double as a hockey puck or maybe a doorstop. If thin is in, then LG didn't get the memo.

With its 1GHz processor, the DoublePlay is a bit behind the curve compared to the new crop of 1.2GHz and 1.5GHz phones that have added zip for games and browsing the Web. The phone is loaded with Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread and we kept missing the superior performance and usability of Android 4.0.

The 5-megapixel camera is also a bit behind the pack. At CES, we saw a bevy of phones with extremely high-res cameras, up to 16MP in some cases. The DoublePlay supports 720p video recording, but it is equally inadequate. The phone includes 2GB of internal memory, but if you need more space for your photos and videos, it supports up to 32GM microSD cards.

As for wireless connections, this is an HSPA+ phone running on T-Mobile in the US with a rated download speed of about 14.4Mbps. Real-world speeds were much lower, hovering around 3-4Mbps.

The phone supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0. Unlike an Android 4.0 phone, the DoublePlay does not work with the new Bluetooth Health Device Protocol (HDP) standard and does not have an NFC chip.

Further lessening its appeal, the DoublePlay comes equipped with a 1500 mAh battery is not quite capable of all-day functionality. The two screens definitely hamper the experience if all you care about is talking and texting. The phone is rated for just three hours of talk time.

In our own tests, the DoublePlay lasted for about six hours of normal use during the day. As with many recent Android phones, we installed the Juice Defender and were able to use the phone an entire day.

Alas, none of that is likely to matter if you're interested in the DoublePlay solely for its dual-screen functionality. We think only the most hardcore dual-screen users will appreciate the hardware design; other will miss a slimmer phone.

Interface

One of the main reasons to consider the LG DoublePlay is its appealing and unusual interface. Pull up the browser and you'll see thumbnail bookmarks for sites you've visited on the second screen. Use the Richnote app and you can create a new memo.

There are nine apps included like the Bobsled group messaging app, music and calendar apps, browser and social apps, and a photo app which all work with the DoublePlay's unique screens. Typically, the top screen displays a typical portion of the interface and extra controls are displayed in the lower screen.

The dual-screen setup is most effective for keeping tabs on things or multitasking. For example, LG includes the Sim City Deluxe game, so you can get engrossed in building a city on your phone but also run the messaging app on the secondary screen to reply to that message your boss sent you.

Unfortunately, this novelty wears thin quickly. The main problem is that there are only nine apps that work with the secondary screen, and there doesn't seem to be a plan to add more.

When you download the Evernote app or Skype, you won't be able to run part of these apps on the second screen and there's no way to find out which apps are supported shy of running each and seeing if the secondary screen does anything.

The confusion is exacerbated by having this blend of widgets and apps placed on the secondary screen. Many of the widgets, including one for social networks and for messaging, plus several others, do not work with the secondary screen once opened.

So, you might run the Friends social network widget and the social network app for the secondary screen, but they do not work in tandem. Oddly, the widget and secondary-screen apps often look alike, even if they do not work in concert.

Contacts and calling

Calling

Since the DoublePlay uses the older Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system, you won't find any of the new and improved contact management tricks of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. For example, when a call comes in, there isn't a slider that lets you send the caller a text message instead.

Despite an antiquated interface, the phone was loud and clear for most test calls, and the speakerphone was plenty loud.

The DoublePlay has the dreaded "taco phone" look when you make calls, due to the larger size and thickness. Imagine talking on the Nintendo DS as a phone and you will get the idea.

Contacts

We did like the quick responsiveness for searching contacts. You can press the search button to type a name, and once you do, a list of contacts and saved e-mail addresses appears almost instantaneously.

With a few other phones we've tested, including the Galaxy Nexus, there is sometimes a slight pause when searching. The Contacts app tended to load a bit slow, probably due to having 3000 Gmail contacts.

For each contact, you can view the history of your interactions. The phone also lets you add Twitter, Facebook, and other contacts for social networks and search for those as well.

Messaging

Messaging on the DoublePlay depends almost entirely on whether you prefer a split keyboard. Some computer users swear by them and can type faster when they have one section of the keyboard for each hand.

The DoublePlay is split in such a way that the 2-inch screen is located between the QWERTY keys. It feels a little weird, and initially our typing speed seemed to suffer a bit from the strange finger spacing. As with many physical keyboards, there's a learning curve, but eventually our typing speed actually improved.

If physical keyboards aren't your thing (and you somehow still end up with this phone) you can slip the keyboard closed and type using software keyboard, which we found were preferable to several higher quality phones (we're looking at you, Motorola Atrix 2).

The phone does use haptics for the soft keyboard, which is a plus for those who find the slight buzz sensation to be helpful. (On phones like the Atrix 2, the buzzing is a bit too pronounced.) We found typing on the DoublePlay software keyboard to be fluid and fast for most texting and e-mail chores.

LG includes the Bobsled group texting app which is works exactly like GroupMe. You can add contacts to a group, and then send group texts and store them in the cloud. Like GroupMe, you can load the Bobsled app on your tablet or even on a different phone to see your group texts elsewhere.

Messaging on the dual-screen DoublePlay does provide a good paradigm shift, though. You can load up the messaging app, type a Facebook status update, or even browse photos and music lists on the second screen while you browse the Web on the primary screen.

This helps in a rather select group of instances, but when it does, it almost validates the phone entirely.

Say you want to let someone know about an upcoming event or schedule change. You can look up what you need to know on the main screen with the browser, and then type in the message on the second screen, all without switching between apps.

Internet

Internet browsing on the LG DoublePlay is a bit of a saving grace. Besides the useful dual-tasking mentioned earlier, the phone's dual-screen setup just makes sense for web browsing.

It shows webpages on the main 3.5-inch screen, and a thumbnail of previously-visited sites on the secondary screen. You can flip through these thumbnails in a rotating preview that looks like a rolodex.

Sites like TechRadar.com and Google.com loaded quickly and formatted correctly.

We had occasional (and expected) Adobe Flash problems, but some sites, like TechRadar, worked without hitch.

The phone supports text re-flow for most sites and worked well on those sites we visited. Page zoom in and out worked fast and handled most sites for text and images well.

Camera

The DoublePlay offers just a 5MP camera, and the image quality isn't great. Snap a photo, and the DoublePlay produces a slightly blurred image lacking in color and detail. Pictures taken in outdoor sunlight look quite a deal better than inside, but neither were worth writing home about.

Bring the camera inside and the colors tend to look washed out and a bit dim. That's a problem when there are so many adequate cameras on smart phones - and the rift will just deepen now that phones like the HTC Titan II on the horizon.

Sunlight

Bright outdoor scenes looked better than indoor photos, but they still weren't fantastic.

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Gameboard

Indoor shots, even with background lighting, looked dim and grey.

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People

Some outdoor shots produced heavy noise - though at least part of this could be racked up to temperamental ultra-bright shooting conditions.

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The LG DoublePlay has surprisingly few camera options on the software side. The scenes modes are paltry – basically, a few indoor and outdoor settings but nothing that made a huge difference.

Scenes mode provide a negligible value beyond the basic auto setting. There wasn't a huge difference between the auto mode and the sunlight mode for outdoor shots.

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Fortunately, the shutter speed is reasonable. On the DoublePlay, the shutter is responsive and clicks almost instantly. Switching between modes is also faster than expected, which is helpful when you want to quickly switch over to video mode.

You can't tap the screen to focus on a subject, but you can enable a face tracking mode. There is also a Macro Focus mode (but not a Macro Scene mode which adjusts the focus and other settings).

Video

Video quality was also not up to snuff. The optics in the phone are also not exactly competitive with other phones, and videos in 1280x720 HD mode tended to look choppy, slightly pixelated, and often with dropped frames.

Light changes

The DoublePlay did switch reasonably well between an indoor lamp, outside scene, and then back to indoor lighting without too much fading and color changes.

This typical outdoor scene, one of many we shot, is too choppy, as though the video was losing frames. The colors were accurate, though, and looked well lit.

Indoor video

Indoor videos did not exactly pop in terms of color vibrancy, but at least they looked better than the more choppy videos in an outdoor scene. Note the focus problem at a midpoint on the video.

Like the still photo mode, there are few Scene Modes – only a handful for outdoor, sunlight, and night. That means you can't specifically set the video mode for things like a macro scene or candles at a birthday party like you can with a full pocket digital camera.

Media

With two screens, there is a great opportunity for innovative games ala the Nintendo DS, or watching a movie on one screen while keeping tabs on your e-mail in another, or just running a slideshow on one screen and music on another.

Unfortunately, none of those activities are possible. The DoublePlay only works with nine apps in dual-screen mode, and none of them are directly related to media consumption.

Another surprise is that there is no front-facing camera on the DoublePlay, which seems like a necessity in today's day and age.

Like we mentioned, the phone supports up to 32GB microSD cards, which is helpful since the phone only has 2GB of internal memory. The slot for the flash cards is easily accessible inside the back cover.

Oddly, LG does not provide a music widget you can drop onto the 3.5-inch main screen, though there is an app for the secondary screen that allows you to control your music. Sound quality is average – not distorted, but not loud enough. The phone supports most common music formats like MP3, AAC, WAV, and WMA and all formats worked properly.

The display is small enough to make watching videos feel a bit lackluster. The DoublePlay supports MPEG4 and H.264/H.263 for video and played both smoothly. LG includes the DoubleTwist app for syncing media.

There's no built-in app for renting movies or TV shows, but you can play videos using the YouTube app or load them as MPEG4 files onto the device. The phone is DLNA-compatible for streaming media to set-top boxes and video game consoles and supports FM radio.

Battery life and connectivity

Battery Life

Due to a relatively small 1500 mAh battery and the need to light up two displays, battery life wasn't great. The talk time rating of three hours is fairly typical, but using the phone for everyday use (browsing the Web occasionally, checking e-mail, and sending text messages) only netted around six hours of usage.

You can extend the battery life using an app like Juice Defender, which disables the 4G connection for background usage. (To enable the connection, you just tap an option for short-term usage.)

Connectivity

While plenty of phones are still rocking Gingerbread, we couldn't help but think of all the ways the DoublePlay could have benefited from it. Being stuck on Gingerbread means Android Beam is not available - a tool that lets you send YouTube video links, Web site bookmarks, and your contacts by tapping phones together.

The DoublePlay does support Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0, but doesn't support Bluetooth 4.0, the new standard that uses lower power transmissions. The DoublePlay also does not support Bluetooth HDP, the new standard included with ICS that lets you connect to heart rate monitors, step counters, and workout machines at the gym.

The phone works with the T-Mobile 4G network in the US for theoretical speeds of about 14.4Mbps, but a real-world throughput of more like 3-4Mbps. (The speed of your connection depends greatly on where you are, other users who are connected, et al.)

Maps and Apps

Maps

LG comes packed with the usual Gingerbread Google Maps, which functions similar to how it has in the past. Google Maps comes complete with voice guided turn-by-turn directions.

The DoublePlay also comes loaded with the TeleNav GPS app for mapping. Though it'll eventually cost you an additional $2.99 a month, and we can't think of any compelling reasons to use it isntead of Google Maps. We'd rack this one up as bloatware.

Apps

It's not the only bloatware on the phone, either. For the most part, the included apps aren't meaningless - they just provide services that other, free-er apps provide better. For instance, if you already use the The Kindle app or Google books for reading, you might not need the Blio app.

But it's not all junk - the phone includes the Lookout security app for finding a stolen phone, scanning for malware, and backing up data. There's a Wi-Fi Calling app you can use that does not use up your minutes for voice calls.

Other included apps of use include the world famous Sim City Deluxe and Tetris, as well as the Slacker radio app, the DoubelTwist music app, Zinio, Polaris Office, and the Bobsled group-texting app. Polaris Office is a good option for viewing Microsoft Office apps, which might mean you won't need to purchase Quickoffice for your mobile Office related needs.

Verdict

The LG DoublePlay is a unique phone that, if nothing else, tries to do something different. When it works, the dual-screens let you multitask at an unprecedented and entirely awesome pace.

Unfortunately, its uses are so sparse, that the novelty of the DoublePlay starts to wear thin, quickly. The phone is quite a bit too big and bulky, so everyday tasks like making calls and browsing the Web become too cumbersome.

We liked

The dual-screen does afford some extra functionality – namely, texting or taking notes on the small screen while you perform other tasks on the main screen. And when you're done using the physical keyboard, it's handy being able to slide up the phone keyboard and use the virtual keyboard.

Apps generally ran fast, and we had no problems visiting sites (except a few that buckled under their own large Flash animations).

We disliked

The LG DoublePlay felt bulky and heavy by the end of the day. The battery can't match the longevity of comparable models.

The camera did not provide enough clarity for photos or video, and did not include enough settings to fake good picture-taking.

Typing on the split-screen was a bit cumbersome and, perhaps most unforgivable of all, the small display frequently had no functionality in conjunction with apps. There was no way to know what was supported, aside from opening each app.

Verdict

The LG DoublePlay gets extra points for doing something almost entirely different. For some, the second screen will be a productive aid.

However, at the end of the day the second screen feels more like a mistake than a revolution, and as an everyday phone, the DoublePlay just doesn't cut it.

It's too bulky, too unintuitive, and too low-tech to be anything besides a gimmick.