SomeGadgetGuy’s 2013 Smartphone Awards! The Best of the Best!

SGG Smartphone awards 2013 smallIt’s that time!

Wrapping up the year, we’re going to take a look back at the year in smartphones. Unlike our Tablet Buying Guide, there are many aspects to shopping a phone. Instead of declaring a one-size-fits-all winner, we’re going to run down a list of individual features. We’ll hand out awards to the best of the best in categories like Camera, Speakers, and Battery Life.

If you’re shopping a phone this Holiday Season, we hope this will help you make a buying decision on those features which are most important to you!

Let’s get to it!

Continue reading “SomeGadgetGuy’s 2013 Smartphone Awards! The Best of the Best!”

Top 5 for the week starting November 18 – Instagram, Expensive Phones, and Dopey Tech Support

WP_20131120_17_53_09_ProThese were the top read and shared stories from SomeGadgetGuy last week! Kind of an eclectic round up. I love it!

Let’s jump in!

5 – Microsoft Support: If your Surface wont turn on, just tap on “”Settings”…

So much fun finding these little gems. Bad tech support advice direct from a major tech company. Microsoft is usually pretty good about this too, but this one slipped through. It seems like reasonable advice. Until you use your brain and think about it…

LootCrate Whats in the box4 – Friday Fun – November Loot Crate Un-Boxing! CELEBRATE!

My second Loot Crate! I had to share what was inside! Each month a box of cool geeky gear is dropped off at your door. If you’d like to shop a Crate, you can save 10% by using promo code “SGLOOT” at check out!

3 – The argument for buying the most expensive phone you can…

The conventional logic would assume that if you’re not very tech savvy, then maybe you don’t need all the “bells and whistles” of more expensive gear. Here however, we take a look at what benefits there might be for shopping premier phones, with a few tips for saving cash while doing buying high end.

WP_20131120_12_10_56_Pro2 – Hands on Dreamwork’s ‘Dragons Adventure’ for the Lumia 2520

We’re entering another services and software era. Our phones and tablets are crazy powerful and come chock full of movement and location sensors collecting data. Now we’ll see more apps taking advantage of that raw power. We take a look at Dreamworks newest family game which uses geolocation tracking on a tablet and ties into a parents phone for participation.

1 – Instragram BETA for Windows Phone vs 6Tag and Instagram on Android

instagram vs 6tag app comparison somegadgetguyNothing like a good old fashioned showdown, and this was the most shared story of the week! Instagram is finally on Windows Phone, so let’s see how the BETA app compares to the established 3rd party app 6Tag!

We’re nothing without you readers, and we certainly can’t compete against the big blogs by ourselves. We always greatly appreciate not only the likes, but the sharing on social sites like Google Plus, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit. The more we get to talk with other tech fans, the better we get, and soon we’ll be able to reward that participation with some fun contests coming up soon!

Thanks for reading, and if you feel we missed a big story this week, or you have a hot tip, please drop us a line on our Contact Page!

Weekend listening: Our Surface 2 Speaker Quality Test

WP_20131120_17_53_09_ProOur first Windows tablet to hit the SomeGadgetGuy Test Bench!

We never did get our hands on the first Surface, but Surface 2 is ready to go! We’ll playback some movie and music samples to see how it stacks up to phones and bluetooth speakers! The audio level for our tablet tests is normalized to compare directly with the HTC One, so listen back to that test and you’ll be able to hear how the Surface 2 stacks up!

Previous speaker tests:
HTC One
Lumia 920
JawBone JAMBOX
LG G2
Lumia 1020
HMDX Jam Classic
Galaxy S4 Active
Nokia Play 360
HTC One Mini
LG Optimus G Pro
iPhone 5S
Pantech Discover

It’s Funny Because It’s Sad, Sad Because It’s True – “I Forgot My Phone” on Youtube

i lost my phoneOver 30 million views on Youtube. CharstarleneTV has certainly tapped into a fear many of us tech-heads have contemplated.

We’re already living in a dystopian future.

At once tongue in cheek and instantly maudlin, because it’s completely recognizable.

Friday fun: Will.i.am tries to explain his iPhone case…

It’s not like he built his career on trying to be a wordsmith or anything…

Hands on: Dreamwork’s Dragons Adventure for the Nokia Lumia 2520 – ‘How To Train Your Dragon’ GPS Game

WP_20131120_12_10_56_ProThis is cool folks.

I think hardware is starting to plateau. Phones and tablets are now “powerful enough” for the services of today, and I think we’re going to see a pendulum swing back to software and services over the next year as developers start tapping into all the raw sensor data available in consumer gear.

I got to spend the day at Dreamworks Animation Studio today to get hands on with their new collaboration with Nokia. A game called ‘Dragons Adventure’ will be launching exclusively for Nokia phones and tablets starting with the Lumia 2520, and it’s featuring some really forward thinking tech… Continue reading “Hands on: Dreamwork’s Dragons Adventure for the Nokia Lumia 2520 – ‘How To Train Your Dragon’ GPS Game”

Review: RAVPower Wireless Card and Flash Drive Reader – Use WiFi to share files between phones and tablets!

ravpower wireless card reader movie streamingI’m stoked to see more gadgets like this.

Getting files on and off our tablets and phones can be painful. As much as these devices claim autonomy, often we still need to resort to plugging them into proper computers. Wireless drives afford us more flexibility in handling our mobile data, allowing us to build portable clouds, and providing us easier solutions for sharing media with other people.

Let’s take a look at RAVPower’s entry into this gadget class with the RP-WD01.

More info on RAVPower devices.
The RAVPower Wireless Card reader on Amazon.

The argument for buying the most expensive phone you can, even if you aren’t “tech-y”…

WP_20130728_004A quick thought here. We recently published our holiday tablet buying guide, and I’ll be releasing our phone guide later this week, but going through the list of candidates something struck me.

We keep saddling non-tech-y folks with under-powered hardware.

There’s this idea that because someone might not be super tech savvy, that all the bells and whistles of a premier smartphone will be wasted on them.

“Why would I want to spend money on stuff I might not use if I just want to check my email and make phone calls?”

Continue reading “The argument for buying the most expensive phone you can, even if you aren’t “tech-y”…”