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Microsoft Surface: Massive price slash pits Windows versus the iPad mini!

 

The Microsoft Surface Windows tablet’s been on sale since before Christmas, priced to take on Apple’s 9.7-inch full fat iPad at £400. Microsoft’s just got much more aggressive however, drastically slashing the price of its flagship Windows RT slate by a full third. Would you pick one of these now over the smaller and cheaper iPad mini?

Head on over to surface.com and you’ll see that the software giant has dropped the price of the 10.6-inch 32GB Microsoft Surface RT tablet to just £279 (without the smart keyboard cover), just a tenner more than Apple asks for the 7.9-inch, oh so portable iPad mini.

Now, there are some significant difference between the two devices: both run different software, and the Surface is almost twice the size of an iPad mini, which makes it easier for typing on at a desk, but less comfortable to hold in your lap. Apple’s iOS store boasts hundreds of thousands of apps, but the Surface packs a USB port so you can plug your own PC peripherals in. It’s swings and roundabouts

It’s not quite clear why Microsoft has dropped the price of the Surface now: Windows RT’s not had the best start in life, with few popular apps available for the platform, so it could be that sales have struggled, as some analysts believe. Or it could be that a Microsoft Surface 2, or even a Microsoft Surface Mini, is just around the corner – the optimists in us hope it’s that, as we’re always for more competition.

Which would you pick, a Microsoft Surface or an iPad mini? Tell us where your allegiances lie in the comments below!

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Five of the best social reader apps

 

Need to keep up on your reading? Need help just deciding what to read? You’ve come to the right place. While tablets and mobiles with internet connections have made it easier than ever to read the news or even a novel on the bus, it can be tough to know where to even start with so much to choose from online.

That’s where social readers, apps that pull together the must read articles from your friends on social networks and other sources, come in. Grab one of these and you’ll never be bored when you’re stuck on the train again. Here are five of the best social readers for your mobile or tablet that will keep you on top of all your feeds.

Flipboard

Flipboard is one of the most jam-packed reader apps available right now: it takes your social feeds and favourite sites and turns them into a gorgeous digital magazine that’s tailored just for you to flip through. A recent update to the app now lets you even curate your own magazines, through either saving articles within the app or through a bookmarklet on your desktop browser, plus you can share them with friends too and subscribe to other people’s magazines.

Pulse

While it’s similar to Flipboard in that it takes your news feeds and spruces them up, Pulse is a little bit different in that it’s just for reading news and not pulling things into a magazine. Pulse stacks up your feeds in a visual, mosaic layout that’s consistent throughout the mobile apps and the online site. Sharing is a doddle on the mobile apps, with Instapaper, Pocket and Evernote functions, but it’s a bit limited on the desktop, with only Facebook and Twitter sharing.

Feedly

Feedly is great alternative to Google Reader, boasting slick mobile applications and sharing functions across the board. It’ll even suggest articles to you based on what you’ve been reading, and you can share anything you like by a single tap to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pocket, Instapaper, Buffer plus e-mail too. The mobile apps are slick and responsive, and the desktop versions are the next best thing once Google’s beloved news reader app shuts up shop on 1 July.

Reeder

One of the most powerful news reading apps available on iOS, Reeder takes you through your news feeds with ease and looks good doing it too with its simple interface and easy to use gestures. Tricky pages can be rendered easily through Readability, and it syncs in well with all the sharing options you could possibly need, from Twitter, Facebook, Evernote, Pocket, Quote.FM and more. The Mac and iPad versions are currently free while they play catch up to the latest 2.0 update on the £1.99 iPhone version.

Zite

Zite is available on both Android and iOS and boasts a clean, newspaper style view as well as a straightforward news feed view too that looks slick and helps you get through your news quickly. It also packs in decent sharing options through Twitter, Facebook and email.

Huawei Ascend Y300: Incredible £60 Android phone hits the UK!

 

Smartphones just keep getting cheaper and cheaper, but while we’ve seen the odd Android phone for under £60 before, none have been quite as powerful as this. Meet the Huawei Ascend Y300, a new droid with a big screen and some serious internals, all for the tenth of the price of the Samsung Galaxy S4!

Up for an upgrade but don’t fancy breaking the bank? You could do far worse than the Huawei Ascend Y300, which packs in a four-inch display (the same size as the iPhone 5, no less), a zippy dual-core 1GHz processor, and speedy, app-packed Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Around the back, there’s a five megapixel camera, so you can get your Instagram and Vine on, as with any other pricier competitor.

We’ve seen a glut of cheap Android phones of late, from the beefy Huawei Ascend G510 to Vodafone’s smaller Smart III, but this might jsut be the best combination of price, specs and size yet.

Want in? The Huawei Ascend Y300 is out today with Carphone Warehouse, priced up at £59.95 on prepay for existing customers and £69.95 for newcomers, and from just £7.50 per month on contract.

Nokia Windows RT tablet coming in February

 

A Nokia Windows RT tablet to take on the Microsoft Surface and Apple iPad? You betcha. Nokia’s top execs have hinted at a Windows tablet before, but a new report’s just given us a date as to when we could see slice of nice debut – and it’s just weeks away.

Digitimes reports that Nokia will “resume” work on a 10-inch tablet powered by Windows RT, and will likely unveil the slate at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at the end of February. Sources says that work on the Nokia Windows RT tablet originally began at the start of 2012, but the Finns put it on hold when Microsoft released its own Surface tablet running the same operating system.

Windows RT is a stripped down version of Windows 8 designed to run on mobile processors like zippy tablet rivals such as the iPad. Now that Nokia’s seen some success with its Windows Phone 8 smartphones, it might be ready to branch out.

It wouldn’t be the first time Nokia made a Windows computer though – remember the Nokia Booklet 3G laptop? Fingers crossed a Nokia Windows RT tablet can make more of an impact.

Nokia Windows Phone has an Ace up it's sleeve!

  

With Microsoft’s Mango iteration of Windows Phone now out in the wild, it’s only a matter of time before we see the first Nokia Windows Phone handsets. The Nokia Ace is the latest rumoured device, featuring a 4.3-inch display and taking on high-end handsets like the Samsung Galaxy S II.
We’ve been waiting for a Nokia Windows Phone handset for a little while now, but it seems likely that the first devices will feature hardware that’s similar to existing Nokia models – such as the Nokia N9.

Windows Phone Mango: Top 5 features!
It appears that Nokia also has an ace up its sleeve – literally, if the rumours are to be believed, with the Finnish company about to launch a 4.3-inch smartphone called the Nokia Ace.
With technology including an AMOLED display, 8-megapixel Carl Zeiss camera and HSPA+ connectivity, the Nokia Ace could be capable of taking on the Samsung Galaxy S II and other high-end Android smartphones, not to mention the upcoming Apple iPhone 5.

Not set to launch until 2012, Nokia could reveal full details of the Ace at Nokia World in October. Stay tuned for more information!

Would you buy a 4.3-inch Nokia Windows Phone? Leave a comment and let us know.

Apple iPhone users addicted to games: What's your favourite

It doesn’t seem that long ago that Sony and Nintendo had the portable gaming market to themselves, with the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS handhelds. Since the launch of the Apple iPhone and iPad, however, both have found things a lot more difficult, with users switching to mobile phones for casual gaming.

Before the Apple iPhone, if you wanted to play games on a portable platform, the Sony PSP or Nintendo 3DS were the handhelds to have. Mobile phones have come on in leaps and bounds in the past few years, however, with mobile gaming now proving a popular attraction.

And, with users turning their attention to portable games, it appears that Apple is coming out on top. A survey by market research company Nielsen has shown that Apple users spend nearly twice as much time playing games as those with Android, spending just under 15 hours per month playing Angry Birds and other titles.

On average, Android users spend nine hours playing games, with Windows Phone users playing titles for just under five hours. Even BlackBerry owners are getting in on the action, with the business-aimed handsets used for around four and a half hours each month for games.

So for all the features the latest smartphones offer, it seems like you guys are just as interested in just playing games. We’d like to hear what your favourite smartphone games are – so please leave a comment and let us know your thoughts.www.tell-me-first.com