Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (III) review

Pros :

Crisp and vibrant HD screen; Smart 13-megapixel camera; Incredible power; S-Pen and apps

Cons :

No stunning new features; Niche product

The full Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (III) review

Samsung's super scribbler returns

Another year, another Note. As the original phablet, the Samsung Galaxy Note has illegitimately spawned a host of copycat offspring, although for this we can be thankful. After all, the likes of Sony’s Xperia Z Ultra offer up an incredible portable media experience, perfect for catching up with your favourite shows on the daily commute. But Samsung’s Galaxy Note devices are the only ones to sport the excellent S-Pen stylus, an ideal way to get creative and scribble notes on the fly. But does the Galaxy Note 3 offer enough incentive for Galaxy Note II owners to upgrade?

Samsung Galaxy S4 review

  With the Galaxy S 4, Samsung has reached that level of advancement.

 A phone that pauses a movie when look away, will scroll down a webpage with a slight move of your head and can bring up snippets of links simply by hovering a finger above the screen doesn’t just seem supernatural to 15^th century peasants – it seems pretty damn magical to us, too.

Building on greatness
How do you improve on perfection? The S III was our five star phone of the year in 2012, but somehow, Samsung has taken what makes it great, sprinkled on a little more of its South Korean pixie dust and has produced something that is going to be hard to top.

The S 4 uses the S III as a template, and then packs in even more phone, despite being thinner and lighter.

Left: The new Samsung Galaxy S 4. Right: The Galaxy S 3

Sony Xperia Z Ultra review

Pros :

Gorgeous uber-crisp screen; Sexy Sony design; Mega powerful

Cons :

Absolutely massive; No camera flash

The full Sony Xperia Z Ultra review

Sony’s first phablet sports a beautiful slimline design and gorgeous HD screen

We’ve got to admit, we’re starting to worry about the rapid growth of smartphone size. Samsung started it all with the Galaxy Note ‘phablet’ and now every manufacturer’s throwing increasingly gigantic devices our way, until soon we’ll need enormous baggy clown pants or handbags the size of Scotland just to carry our phones around. Sony is the latest culprit, and its 6.4-inch Xperia Z Ultra is a whopper, far bigger than the Galaxy Note 3 (5.7-inch) and even the Samsung Galaxy Mega (6.3-inch). That casts it hilariously close to tablet territory (the likes of Google’s Nexus tablet are seven inches).
So, is that chunky build an acceptable price to pay for a gloriously spacious screen?

Samsung Galaxy Mega review

Pros :

Huge screen; Great battery life; Well-priced phablet

Cons :

Small internal memory; Camera shake on photos; No built-in stylus

The full Samsung Galaxy Mega review

Mega Machine, and another Samsung phablet

What’s in a name? Well, if you think Samsung Galaxy Mega is a bit of a mouthful, you probably shouldn’t have tried to swallow it in the first place. Even those calling it the Samsung GT-19205 may soon realise they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. That’s because the latest device from the company that kicked off the phablet craze is a whopper.

To put the Galaxy Mega into context, Samsung makes a version of its flagship S4 smartphone called the Galaxy S4 Mini. This ‘Mini’ is actually bigger than the iPhone 5s, which is Apple’s largest handset. So when Samsung calls something ‘Mega’...

Sony Xperia ZR Review

The Xperia ZR is a new waterproof smartphone from Sony. Based on the similar chipset and almost identical hardware specs from the older siblings, the Xperia Z and Xperia ZL, the Xperia ZR is a smartphone ideal for the Indian climate conditions. With an IP58 certification under its belt, the phone is dustproof and waterproof, submersible up to 2 metres underwater for almost 30 minutes. Read ahead to find out what the ZR has under the hood and how the phone fares in our tests.