The alaTest Blog

There is a huge convenience in condensing two devices down into one. Still, you can’t help but wonder whether or not your Smartphone really does make a better MP3 player than a dedicated device. Smartphones offer one significant advantage over MP3 players: a mobile data connection. You can download and stream music, so you’re not limited to the songs you can fit on your device. The iPhone and Android phones also have the advantage of well stocked App stores for all sorts of multimedia, productivity, and gaming applications (something only a few MP3 players offer).

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Portable gaming has been around for decades, starting with Mattel’s light based handhelds back in the Seventies. Things really started to take off in the late Eighties with Nintendo’s original Game Boy, followed a little over a year later by Sega’s more technologically advanced Game Gear, and even though the Game Boy sold significantly better, this marked the slow start of technological progression of handheld consoles.

Read more on the Future of Portable Gaming

Technology never stands still, something twice as true for the mobile world. Smartphones, especially, are expected to see performance increases greater than any previous year as well as new features that rival even science fiction. To put this into perspective, it’s generally accepted that processing power doubles every one and a half to two years. In terms of raw processing power, this year’s smartphones will be more than twice as fast as last’s. But enough techno babble; let’s get straight to the phones.

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The Nexus S is Google’s latest flagship Smartphone to run the search giant’s Android operating system. Released on December 16^th in the US and shortly after in Europe, it received many mixed reviews, some denouncing the phone for being less than expected and others praising it as the best Android device yet. All the commotion makes it tough to know if the Nexus S is actually any good. Read the rest of this entry »

The iPhone 4 isn’t just a Smartphone; it’s a fashion statement. With such a stylish device, it only makes sense that its accessories should be equally stylish, and if they can’t be stylish, they’d better have a damned good reason why, like those ugly protective casings that enclose your iPhone in some tank-like skin.

Speaking of cases, we’ll start there. Read the rest of this entry »

alaTest.com is the reference in consumer electronic product reviews. We have a unique way of gathering, processing and filtering data we scrape from the web in order to give our users the most objective product reviews and help them in their purchasing decisions. We also give products an alaScore which a simple rating scale, ranging from 0 to 100. It provides you with a quick and simple method to compare similar products on alaTest websites (more info about alaScore).

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The Android operating system and iOS (the iPhone’s operating system) are the two titans in today’s Smartphone market. We’ve pitted the two platforms against each other in a battle amongst several categories which are integral to a Smartphone.

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Cell phone carriers like to have exclusive devices to draw in more customers where their network quality can’t. Each carrier has its own flagship Smartphone, so we decided to take a look at the Big Four’s offerings. Of course there are plenty of other devices to choose from, so take a look at our Cell Phone Reviews to help you find the best Smartphone prices.

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