Review: The Kodak PIXPRO AZ522 camera with 52X Zoom

Kodak AZ522 SomeGadgetGuy

Back from the Chapter 11 ashes, JK Imaging is reviving the Kodak brand, and iterating quickly on a variety of different photography solutions.

The AZ522 is their flagship point and shoot, utilizing a crazy optical zoom. Is that long zoom enough to compete in a world of terrific smartphone cameras? Let’s take a look!

Related:
Photo Samples from the PIXPRO AZ522
Kodak Badge PIXPRO AZ522 SomeGadgetGuy Review

Valentine’s Day Freebie: DE LA SOUL giving away their ENTIRE album catalog!

de la soul free valentines day albumsNot a lot to this post. If you dig DE LA SOUL (and you don’t already own their entire catalog), they’re hooking you up today only!

Head over to www.WeAreDELASOUL.com and sign up for the mailing list. About an hour later you’ll have a link in your email to download the albums you want. It’s a fun way to spike some conversation in anticipation of their upcoming album You’re Welcome, which we’re still waiting on a release date.

Enjoy!

Galaxy Gear Valentine’s Day Sale – $150 at BestBuy Today Only

29 gearSamsung and Best Buy are sharing the love.

If you’re biggest gripe with the Galaxy Gear was its price tag, you can now snatch one for a little more than the price of a Pebble! Today only, most of the color options for the Gear are ready to drop  for $149.99.  I would image at this price, they’ll move quickly…

Is this enough of a price cut for you to jump on the SmartWatch bandwagon?

Galaxy Gear Sale (Best Buy)

Gadget Bag Review: STM Blazer Small Laptop & Tablet Sleeve

Damn how I love a good gadget bag. I’m constantly on the look out for anything which might satisfy that balance of “tech friendly” and “stylish”. In this case I wanted something slim and portable. STM’s Blazer might just fit the bill.


Shop STM on Amazon.

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Nokia Shows Off Lumia Icon Smartphone, coming to Verizon February 20th

nokia lumia icon verizonIt’s official! The next Lumia headed to VZW will be branded “Icon” instead of some string of numbers.

Icon looks to bridge some of the new high power internals found on Nokia’s 1520 phablet with a slightly more phone-like form factor. The 5″ OLED screen is 1080p, and it’s packing the Qualcomm 800 quad-core we’ve all come to know and love in our high end phones. 32GB of storage will be on board with 2GB of RAM to keep all your apps fed. Best of all, Icon retains internal wireless charging based on the Qi standard, so no futzing with sleds or cases.

nokia lumia icon verizon rearFor you A/V freaks, the 20MP shooter from the 1520 will make another appearance, as will the high fidelity quad microphone array which allows for incredible sound and solid noise reduction on your videos.

Bridging the boxy design of the Lumia 928 with a slimmer  Aluminum build and curved glass, it’s an attractive piece. Not as curvy as the phones we’ve used on AT&T, but distinctive and modern.

The phone will drop on February 20th for $199.99 with a two year agreement. Purchasing before March 16 will also get you a free wireless charging dock.

More info on Nokia’s site, or see their teaser vid below!

Windows Phone 8.1: Better file management, Universal Apps, and New Notifcations

Windows Phone is growing up fast.

Details on the new SDK for Windows Phone 8.1 have leaked on Reddit, and Twitter user @AngelWZR has posted screen shots from the developer emulator showing all kinds of fun new features for Microsoft’s phone update.

angelWZR windows phone8.1 screenshots (1)Highlights include fixes for my top two gripes! Windows Phone will now have separate volume controls for media and alerts. It’s can be a painful experience listening to music and then having an email alert go off on your headphones.

We’ll also see radically improved file management in WP8.1. As it stands now, WP8 handles files much like the iPhone does. You don’t really have access to one central app where you can see file location. Now, like on Windows 8 and RT, WP8.1 will allow the new OneDrive app to manage cloud storage and local storage. We’ll also see improved support for memory cards, support app installation on removable media.

We’ll also see significant improvements to other services like NFC, screen sharing on TV’s, and WP8.1 will allow for 3rd party messaging apps. Alongside improvements to the actual phone OS, Microsoft is pushing forward with universal app support, so new apps being developed can work on both Windows Phone and the Metro interface for Windows 8. We knew this synergy was coming with the future Threshold update, but it’s exciting seeing pieces falling into place now. Right now apps don’t travel between phone, tablet, and computer, and I don’t want to have to buy Halo multiple times to play it on all of my various screens.

angelWZR windows phone8.1 screenshots (7)Best of all, Microsoft has stated that all WP8 phones will be eligible for the 8.1 update. This is a great step forward for the platform, as even the most entry-level phones like the Lumia 520 should be able to benefit from some of these updates.

The actual 8.1 update is rumored to arrive in April, which means we could see much stronger competition from this third place platform later in the year.  See some more screenshots of WP8.1 in action below!

 

Qualcomm Toq Update: Activity and Fitness Tracking Applet!

Qualcomm is teaching their Toq smartwatch a new trick!

I was really happy to see this, as I wasn’t completely sure if the Toq even had an accelerometer built into, but apparently it does, and this newest software update has unlocked activity tracking. It’s SUPER beta, but let’s take a look!

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