Mad Catz F.R.E.Q. M Wireless Mobile Gaming Headset

Pros Powerful bass. Lots of connection options. Comfortable. Long battery life.

Cons Expensive. Highly sculpted sound profile isn't as good for music as it is for games. Multi-purpose button is easy to accidentally tap. Bottom Line The Mad Catz F.R.E.Q. M Wireless headset lets you listen to your games and media almost any way you want—if you can get past the price tag.

By Will Greenwald The Mad Catz F.R.E.Q. M Wireless tries to do everything, and it generally succeeds. This $199.99 headset is part of Mad Catz' GameSmart line of mobile device-focused gaming accessories, but it's more than just headset for smartphones and tablets. Besides Bluetooth with aptX support, it can function as a wired device through a 3.5mm or USB cable, offering ways to connect to any device you might have. It's packed full of features and flexibility, but its sound quality doesn't quite hit the levels you can get from similarly priced dedicated Bluetooth headphones like the Editors' Choice Supertooth Freedom or non-Bluetooth wireless gaming headsets like the Skullcandy PLYR 1.

Design
Like most of Mad Catz' gaming devices, the F.R.E.Q. M Wireless is colorful and stylized, with a glossy, candy shell-like plastic body available in red, black, or white. The headband and outsides of the earcups sport the headset's primary color, while the round earpads, the hinged joints between the headband and the earcups, and the small padded cushion on the underside of the headband are black or white. The F.R.E.Q. M Wireless is comfortable to wear without being bulky, even if the fit is a bit snug. The hinges on the earcups both pivot and bend inward, letting the headset fold up neatly for carrying in the included padded mesh pouch.

The outsides of the earcups are shiny and angular, with casings shaped vaguely like Mad Catz' R.A.T. gaming mice. They're differently and irregularly shaped compared with the circular earpads they hold, which along with the big hex bolts on the hinges give the headset a stylish cyberpunk look.

All connections and controls sit on the outside of the right earcup. A large button that takes up most of the earcup's area sports the Mad Catz logo and serves as the standard multi-use Play/Pause/Call control. The button's easy to tap accidentally, especially when folding up the headset and putting it in a bag. Two smaller sets of buttons flank the large one above and below, offering volume controls, track navigation, and microphone muting. Full-fledged Track Forward/Back and Volume Up/Down buttons are welcome and not often found on Bluetooth headphones, and it's nice to see a full selection of physical controls that don't require multiple, timed taps to get the job done. A 3.5mm port and micro USB port sit on the back edge of the right earcup, between the two rows of buttons.

Features and Connectivity
Mad Catz' free A.P.P. app for Android and iOS offers some useful controls and information about the connected headset. It can switch between Speech, Game, Music, or Movie equalizer settings or turn off the equalizer entirely, and can toggle the microphone on and off. It also has a very handy battery meter that shows how charged the headset is and how much time is left on it. Mad Catz estimates the F.R.E.Q. M Wireless can last approximately 24 hours playing music at medium volume, but that number will obviously go down as you crank the headphones up. With regular use at high volume and connection to multiple devices (the headset can maintain two connections at a time), I found the battery life to be closer to a still-impressive 12 hours.

The F.R.E.Q. M Wireless is primarily a Bluetooth headset, but it can work as a wired headset with or without power. It can connect to your mobile device with the included 3.5mm audio cable to work passively in what Mad Catz calls Flight Mode, or connect to your computer through a USB connection, serving as its own digital-to-analog converter (DAC).

Performance
While it's billed as a gaming headset, the F.R.E.Q. M Wireless also works as a pair of Bluetooth or wired headphones. It does an admirable job playing music, but it doesn't quite reach the clarity or response offered by dedicated, non-gaming Bluetooth headphones in the same price range. It handled our standard bass test track, The Knife's "Silent Shout," very well, though it did brush up against distortion at maximum (and borderline unsafe) volume levels. The bass response is powerful enough to rattle the ears, but I heard just a hint of crackle when the bass synth hits kicked in. Fortunately, it went away completely by reducing the volume a little bit.

The F.R.E.Q. M Wireless handles non-thumpy music fairly capably, as well. I listened to Ninja Sex Party's "Everybody Shut Up" and "Attitude City" through a Bluetooth connection on my computer, and the funky synth of both tracks sounded full without muddying Danny "Sexbang" Avidan's dulcet vocals. Miles Davis's much less synth-heavy "So What" didn't fare nearly as well, though, with the piano lacking enough definition and brightness. The texture of the recording itself lost its warmth or clarity, turning the scratchy analog sound into a steady hiss. This isn't a headset for audiophiles or fans of very subtle mixes at all. 

So music performance isn't quite on par with music-oriented Bluetooth headphones in the same price range, or high-end, non-Bluetooth gaming headsets like the Skullcandy PLYR 1 or its older, more expensive brother, the Astro Gaming A50. Instead, the audio profile is very clearly tweaked towards gamers, with notable sculpting in both low-end and high-end to make games and music sound more exciting. Even the equalizer presets, which are only available through the A.P.P. app, change the headset's sound in ways that will make audiophiles cringe, like pulling up the midrange and high-end and completely dropping out the bass for the Voice preset. For music, the Music equalizer setting offers the best general performance, but it's still sculpted heavily enough to give even my forgiving ears pause. It sounds very good, but not particularly accurate to any given track's mix.

Because the earcups are relatively small and don't completely cover the ear, the F.R.E.Q. M Wireless can bleed sound outwards if you play games or music too loud. It's not an issue for your listening experience, but it can be disruptive if you're using them in a relatively quiet place around other people.

I played Team Fortress 2 with the F.R.E.Q. M Wireless, and the small, collapsible headphones sounded full and powerful while I fought through the Asteroid beta map. Explosions were forceful and punchy, and the music and atmospheric dialogue was clear. The headphones are strictly stereo, and there aren't any audio processing effects to produce positional imaging, like many dedicated PC gaming headsets offer.

I paired the F.R.E.Q. M Wireless to my PlayStation Vita PCH-2000 without any problem and played both Persona 4 and Persona 2: Innocent Sin. The games' soundtracks came through loud and clear, though both funky, atmospheric games obviously emphasize dialogue and music more than explosions.

Conclusion
The Mad Catz F.R.E.Q. M Wireless is an audio Swiss army knife that's aimed at gamers, but capable in multiple roles. It sounds very good for a gaming headset, but for its price its sound profile isn't particularly balanced or friendly to audiophiles. If you spend most of your time on front of a PC or HDTV when gaming, a Skullcandy PLYR 1 might be more up your alley, or the best-in-class Astro Gaming A50 if you can afford the even higher price tag. If you mainly want a good set of headphones to listen to music wirelessly on the go, the Supertooth Freedom offers a more comfortable fit and superior sound. If you're the type of hardcore gamer that lands between those categories, and wants to be able to go wireless both on the go and at home across multiple devices, the F.R.E.Q. M Wireless is an ideal headset.

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LG G2 (Verizon Wireless)

Pros Huge screen. Super-fast processor. Multitasking.

Cons Processor benefit doesn't play out in apps. Some bugs. Not the best voice quality. Bottom Line The LG G2 is both super-sized and super-powerful, but it doesn't quite match the mighty Samsung Galaxy S4, our Editors' Choice Android smartphone on Verizon.

By Eugene Kim

The LG G2 ($199/32GB with 2-year contract) is a study in one-upmanship: From its slightly larger screen to its slightly faster processor, the G2 edges out the Samsung Galaxy S4 in the spec war. But that's just on paper. The modest performance gains aren't enough to overcome some of its bugs and its senseless carrier customization. Still, the G2 is an excellent Android option that'll satiate spec fanatics, but it falls just short of replacing the Galaxy S4 as our Editors' Choice Android phone on Verizon.

We've already tested the LG G2 on AT&T, and there are a few notable differences we'll cover here, but check out our original AT&T LG G2 review for a full rundown of features.

Physical Features, Performance, and Call Quality
The G2's dimensions, weight, and display are the same across carriers. Despite its large 5.2-inch screen, the G2 handles similarly to the 4.9-inch Galaxy S4. All carrier G2s have the bizarre rear-mounted Volume and Power buttons below the camera, but not all of the rear-mounted buttons are created equal. On AT&T's model, the Power button is raised between the Volume buttons, and the plastic has a different texture that makes it feel more defined. Verizon, for reasons unknown, made all three buttons smaller, flatter, and the same texture. It's hard enough to get used to AT&T's setup, but Verizon has rendered these buttons fairly useless—I very rarely found the button I was looking for on my first try. You'll be using LG's clever "knock on" gesture a lot. I really like this feature, and it works about as well as AT&T's, which is about 80 percent of the time. Tapping twice on the screen at any time brings the phone to life. Somtimes I had to tap faster or harder than other times, but it worked more often than not.

The plastic back also features a subtly different look, with a honeycomb pattern instead of the carbon-fiber-like weave on other models. There's also only one speaker port on the bottom of the Verizon G2, versus two on AT&T's. Oddly enough, however, the Verizon G2's speaker got much louder than AT&T's. Audio quality is otherwise equal, with tinny audio that lacks any true bass.

Note: The slideshow below is of the AT&T LG G2, which has identical dimensions, but a different button design and carrier logo.

Aside from the buttons and back design, the G2 is basically identical on all carriers. You still get the excellent 1080p IPS display and blazing fast Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor. In our synthetic benchmarks, Verizon's G2 turned in nearly identical scores on every test. It's the fastest Android phone out right now, but like we saw on AT&T's model, LG's aggressive Android skin seems to be holding the G2 back a bit.

The Verizon G2 is global-ready and supports CDMA, GSM, and LTE on 800/850/900/1800/1900/2100MHz frequencies. In my tests, the G2 had excellent reception, even showing two bars of LTE in our office basement, where many phones struggle to have any connection at all. Voice quality is average, falling noticeably short of the Galaxy S4. Calls made with the G2 are easy to hear, but not as crisp or clear as the S4. Voices sound a bit muddy with some annoying static at the beginning and ends of phrases. Noise cancellation is excellent, as the G2 was able to eliminate most of the loud construction noises during a test call. When on LTE, the G2 averaged between 1-2Mbps down, which is consistent with what we've seen lately on Verizon's increasingly crowded network.

The 3000mAh battery was good for 11 hours, 38 minutes of talk time in our tests. That's a solid result, but is much shorter than the AT&T model's 16 hours.

Bloatware and Conclusions
Of the 32GB of internal storage, only 23.86GB are available out of the box. Like the AT&T model, Verizon's G2 is laden with carrier bloatware. That includes six Verizon branded apps and various third-party apps like Amazon Kindle, Slacker Radio, and Polaris Office. Unfortunately, none of these can be uninstalled and there's no microSD card slot for memory expansion. Aside from that, you get the same heavily skinned Android and LG features that you'll find on the AT&T G2.

The LG G2 can lay claim to fastest processor or biggest screen (not including phablets, like the Samsung Galaxy Note II), but those advantages don't amount to much in real world use. The speed shows through in benchmarks, but not in everyday system performance or intensive apps. The display is beautiful, but even with almost no bezels, this phone is still a bit too wide for comfortable one handed use. Then there's the unorthodox button design, which is worse on the Verizon model. Our Editors' Choice Android phone remains the Samsung Galaxy S4, which offers very similar performance and more polish in a better design. Another Editors' Choice, the Apple iPhone 5s, is in an almost entirely different category at this point, with its own ecosystem and small, 4-inch screen that appeals to a different set of customers. But it's worth checking out if you're not a fan of giant phones.

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Apple iPhone 5c (Verizon Wireless)

Pros Bright and cheerful new colors. Solid value. iPhone 5 internals are still solid. Stronger RF reception than iPhone 5. iOS 7 is a dramatic upgrade.

Cons That 4-inch screen is starting to feel small. No significant new hardware features. Bottom Line The colorful, plastic iPhone 5c is a welcome upgrade for existing iPhone 4 and 4S owners, and a great introduction to Apple's awesome app platform at a nice price. It's the best $99 phone you'll find on Verizon Wireless, but otherwise, there's not much new to see here.

By Sascha Segan, Jamie Lendino

If you think you know the new Apple iPhone 5c ($99 for 16GB/$199 for 32GB with contract), you do. It's the guts of the iPhone 5 wrapped in a colorful enclosure, with a new front-facing camera and battery. That's basically it. Still, the iPhone 5c marks the first time you can get an iPhone in an array of bright colors, recalling the cheerful iMacs and iBooks of the late 1990s. The 5c is a solid play for existing iPhone 4 and 4S owners, as well as those with older Android and BlackBerry phones, and it's a terrific introduction to Apple's app platform at a reasonable price. It's the best new smartphone you can get on Verizon Wireless for $100. But there's zero gee-whiz factor surrounding the iPhone 5c; for that, you need to cough up $100 more for the iPhone 5s—or, for that matter, the Samsung Galaxy S4.

Design, Enclosure, and Case
What's intriguing here is that typically, Apple doesn't sell a newly designed phone for $99; instead, it lowers last year's flagship model to $99, and introduces its new top-of-the-line product with a $199 start price. This time around, the company discontinued the iPhone 5 after just one year, replaced it with the iPhone 5s at $199, and introduced this new lower-price iPhone 5c.

With that out of the way, let's talk details. The iPhone 5c is slightly thicker and heavier than the iPhone 5 and 5s. It measures 4.9 by 2.33 by 0.35 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.65 ounces. Compare that to the iPhone 5s, which measures 4.87 by 2.31 by 0.30 inches and weighs 3.95 ounces. It doesn't make much of a difference, unless you're really picky. Notably, all five color options (blue, green, pink, yellow, or white) are bright and cheerful; there are no neutrals, earth tones, or Droid-esque dystopian-future shades available. Each model also comes with matching home screen colors and wallpaper, which is a nice touch.

But the strangest thing about the iPhone 5c is that it's slippery. You're aware of it while holding it, and you can actually slide it across a desk, in a way that you can't with a Galaxy S 4. It's something about the glossy clearcoat finish over the polycarbonate. It definitely looks and feels smooth and solid. The hardware controls are mostly the same, with the only difference being the volume controls, which are long and thin instead of round. The enclosure also seems more durable; aluminum-bodied iPhones feel richer and more luxurious, of course, but they're also known for getting pretty scratched up if you don't buy a case. There's a reason Samsung has stuck with polycarbonate bodies for its Galaxy phones all this time.

Speaking of cases, Apple's $29 silicone case for the iPhone 5c is much grippier. It's easy to slip the iPhone 5c in and out of, and it lets some of the original color through, thanks to the neatly arranged circular cutouts on the back. The case itself is lined with microfiber, which cushions the phone nicely, and you can get it in an array of colors, which means you can make your own custom color combo. (For more iPhone 5c cases, check out our roundup.)

Connectivity, Call Quality, and Reception
Internally, almost everything in the iPhone 5 is in the iPhone 5c, including the A6 processor, LTE compatibility, 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with f/2.4 aperture, and the 1,136-by-640-pixel 4-inch display. None of these features are suddenly lacking; the iPhone 5's camera remains one of the best you can get, and all current iOS apps run as fast as they need to here. The display is sufficiently sharp, and the new iOS 7 fonts look terrific. But you could definitely argue it's time the display was bumped up in size. Four inches can feel mighty small if you've spent any length of time using a late-model Android phone.

Performance-wise, the iPhone 5c is identical to the iPhone 5. That means it's snappy in day-to-day use, and especially smooth with iOS 7, which features nifty movement and parallax tricks that weren't in the old OS. Downloading Web pages and firing up apps are just as fast as usual, and the iPhone's sensitive multi-touch support and ultra-smooth page scrolling are still the best in the business.

That said, connectivity, call quality, and reception are the places where the iPhone 5c can differ from the iPhone 5, so let's focus on those.

I tested the iPhone 5c side by side with a Verizon iPhone 5 running iOS 7 (more on that later). In a series of speed tests around midtown Manhattan, the iPhone 5c generally pulled in the same disappointing LTE results of 1-3Mbps down and about 1Mbps up that the iPhone 5 scored. But there's a marked, if sometimes inconsistent, improvement in reception; taking both phones out of my pants pocket, the iPhone 5c almost always locked onto LTE faster, while the iPhone 5 waffled between 3G, LTE, and sometimes even 1x for a while.

In our office building's basement, we made test calls and ran data speed tests with the iPhone 5c, 5s, 5, the LG G2, and the Samsung Galaxy S4. The LG G2 had the most trouble connecting calls, and the Galaxy S4 the least, and the newer iPhones leading the iPhone 5.

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Wireless charging from 30 feet away -- does startup have a game changer?

A startup Tuesday unveiled technology it claims can can simultaneously charge multiple different devices in a house, even through walls and around corners, by using the same radio spectrum as other wireless standards, such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

"You don't have to put that device in every room. You just put it into one room in your house and it will power all your devices," said Hatem Zeine, founder of Ossia, developer of the technology. "It's like your Wi-Fi signal. If you can get a Wi-Fi signal, you'll be able to get power."

[ Get expert advice about planning and implementing your BYOD strategy with InfoWorld's 29-page "Mobile and BYOD Deep Dive" PDF special report. | Keep up on key mobile developments and insights with the Mobilize newsletter. ]

After six years of development, Ossia today unwrapped the new Cota wireless charging technology that it says will be available to consumers and enterprises by 2015.

Zeine, demonstrated the technology with a prototype at the TechCrunch Disrupt technology conference in San Francisco this week.

In a video posted by TechCrunch, Zeine held a 2-inch by 2-inch by 1-inch cube-shaped dongle device, plugged it into an iPhone 5 via a standard charging cable and held it in the air until the device indicated it was wirelessly charging; the audience erupted in applause.

"For me, wireless means remote, automatic, effortless," Zeine told the audience.

The Cota wireless charging system includes a wireless charger and a wireless charger receiver -- either a dongle device or tech integrated into a product, such as a smartphone or battery. While it has yet to be miniaturized, Zeine said the wireless technology will eventually be small enough to fit onto the motherboard of a smart phone or even in a AAA battery.

Zeine said the wireless charging technology should appeal to enterprises, such as oil and gas companies, where removing power wires from equipment could lead to greater safety. "Imaging the impact of Cota on the medical, retail, and the hundreds of devices [that] we call the Internet of things. The possibilities are endless," he added.

The wireless charging technology can deliver 1 watt of power at a 30-foot distance. It would to span an entire home and could power multiple devices, Zeine said.

"Cota is inherently safe, as safe as your Wi-Fi hub," Zeine said. "A Cota-enabled device sends out a beacon signal that finds paths to the charger, which in turn returns the power signal through only those open paths back to the receiver, avoiding people or anything that absorbs its energy."

The Cota wireless charging does not depend on line of sight, that is, it can go through walls and around corners without interfering with other electronic equipment in its path, Zeine said.

According to Zeine, the Cota wireless charging technology was discovered by accident. While experimenting with wireless signal management, Zeine, a physicist, discovered that it's possible to focus a signal on a receiving device.

Zeine said his company currently holds four core patents issued by the U.S. patent office, as well as others issued internationally. He plans on licensing the technology to equipment makers. He said Ossia is already discussing the technology with some companies.

The Cota consumer transmitter would sell for around the same price as a Wi-Fi hub, "basically $100 or a little more", Zeine said.

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Droid Maxx by Motorola (Verizon Wireless)

Pros Excellent build quality. Long talk time. Adequate storage. Quick camera launch feature. Powerful voice commands.

Cons Low-res screen for the size. Wide. Lots of bloatware. Bottom Line The Motorola Droid Maxx has a big battery and a nice build, but it loses some of the Moto X's hand-friendliness.

By Sascha Segan Is bigger better? The Motorola Droid Maxx packs a big battery and more memory into yet another phone with roughly the same features as the Moto X, which we love. But although the Maxx has more storage and better battery life than the X, it loses some of the friendly, human qualities which make the X so appealing.

In general, the Droid Maxx is extremely similar to the Motorola Droid Ultra, but with a bigger battery. Go read my Motorola Droid Ultra review for a rundown of the basic features. I'll focus on the differences between the phones here.

The first big difference, of course, is the design. The Droid Maxx, with its five-inch screen, is noticeably wider than the Moto X at 5.41 by 2.8 by .33 inches (HWD) and 5.9 ounces. The difference between 2.57 and 2.8 inches wide is a big deal; while the X is comfortable to use in one hand, it's harder for your thumb to reach across the Maxx. 

Motorola gets things spot-on with the Kevlar casing on this phone, though. Why don't the other Droids feel like this? The Maxx's back is soft-touch, patterned black Kevlar which actually feels like Kevlar, not the ugly, greasy stuff used on the Droid Mini and Droid Ultra. It's even nicer, and the phone feels more solid than the polycarbonate Moto X—not to mention the flimsy plastic Samsung Galaxy S4.

You'll have to buy a Maxx if you're at all worried about storage space, as the Droid/X line don't have memory card slots. The Maxx comes with 25.48GB available of 32GB total storage (25.48GB available) to the Droids' 11-or-so of 16GB. The real frustration here is that a 32GB Moto X exists, but it's an AT&T exclusive.

Call Quality and Battery Life
The Droid Maxx's voice quality is similar to the other Droids. The earpiece is loud and a bit trebly, but it doesn't distort. Call audio wobbled a bit, but that seemed like a network problem rather than a handset issue, as speed tests also showed the Verizon Wireless network was pretty congested near our offices. There's a pleasant amount of sidetone in the earpiece and the speakerphone is very powerful.

Transmissions through the mic in a noisy area sounded robotic; Motorola's CrystalTalk noise cancellation killed the noise, but at the cost of rich voice tone. Transmissions through the speakerphone were very clear, although there was very little background noise cancellation. 

The Droid Maxx's 3,500mAh battery is the largest built-in battery in a one-handed smartphone available today. It's significantly more capacious than the Moto X's 2,200mAh battery. But the giant battery didn't translate into a gigantic increase in talk time, with talk time rising only from 14 hours, 15 minutes to 19 hours, 56 minutes when tested in the same location.

I don't want to minimize the advantage of the bigger battery, but I had expected more from such a capacious power cell. That said, the Droid Maxx should last for two days of moderate use without a problem, and it's the only smartphone I can say that about.

Conclusions
Verizon has made things very confusing by carrying the $99 Droid Mini, the $199 Droid Ultra and Moto X, and the $299 Droid Maxx. The Moto X is still the best; it's made from the nicest body material, has the slimmest set of bloatware, and does away with the horrible death-robot Droid branding.

Both the Mini and the Maxx have their advantages. The Maxx has more memory and a bigger battery, and the Mini is even tighter and easier to hold than the Moto X. But in my mind, neither quite hits the sweet spot that the X does; the Mini slips up with its fingerprint-magnet body and misanthropic Droid branding, and the Maxx loses the X's hand-friendliness with its 2.8-inch width.

Our general Editor's Choice for smartphones is still the Samsung Galaxy S 4, for being more things to more people. It's no wider than the Droid Maxx, but it's slimmer and lighter, with a better screen, better camera, and removable memory. While the Droid Maxx is a good smartphone, it's not quite as good as it could be.

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HTC One (Verizon Wireless)

Pros Best-built phone on the market. Fast quad-core performance. Striking 1080p display. Excellent low-light camera performance.

Cons Heavy Android skin. No removable battery or memory card slot. Lots of bloatware. Bottom Line The HTC One continues to be a well-designed, powerful 1080p Android smartphone, but the five-month wait for a Verizon Wireless version didn't do it any favors.

By Jamie Lendino

It certainly took long enough. After five months of waiting, the HTC One is finally available on Verizon Wireless, after appearing on the other three major U.S. carriers first. The HTC One is still an impressive phone, thanks to its beautiful 4.7-inch 1080p display, quad-core processor, and top-notch UltraPixel camera. The problem is that it's less impressive almost half a year later, as is often the case with Verizon phones—and, coming just days before Apple's next iPhone announcement, it doesn't have a lot of time to win over customers. 

Design, Screen, and Call Quality
For full details, read our Sprint HTC One review, where we go into much more detail on the UltraPixel camera and software features. Here, I'll do a quick recap first, and then tackle what's special about the Verizon Wireless handset.

The HTC One measures 5.41 by 2.69 by 0.37 inches (HWD) and weighs 5.04 ounces. It's fashioned in a rich-feeling aluminum with a thin white plastic strip around the edges. The 4.7-inch, 1,920-by-1,080-pixel Super LCD 3 display is beautiful and bright, although it trades the Samsung Galaxy S4's black levels and color vibrancy for a more accurate, if not quite as striking appearance. Instead of a hardware Home button, all HTC Ones feature a pair of capacitive Back and Home buttons, and there's no direct Menu button, which I continue to find annoying when using Android. Most users have long since gotten used to it, though.

The Verizon Wireless HTC One is a true world phone, with quad-band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), dual-band EV-DO Rev. A (850/1900 MHz), dual-band UMTS (1900/2100 MHz), and LTE support; it runs at 4G speeds here in the U.S. and 3G speeds overseas in most countries. I saw poor results outside in midtown Manhattan, on the order of 1.5 to 3Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up. But my own iPhone 5 on Verizon was notching the same numbers; either something was up on test day, or Verizon's LTE network is getting really crowded here in New York City.

Note: The slideshow below is of the AT&T HTC One, which is identical except for the Verizon Wireless logo on the back.

Otherwise, voices sound crisp in the earpiece, with plenty of volume, although the Galaxy S4 continues to sound the best thanks to its adaptive EQ software. I heard a little static through the mic on the other end of the call, but my voice was easily intelligible. The speakerphone is excellent, thanks to the integrated Beats Audio (more on that later). We're still testing battery life and will update this review as soon as we have a result.

Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean is on board, along with a quad-core 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor, 2GB RAM, NFC, and Bluetooth 4.0 support. HTC Sense 5 looks the same here as it does on the other HTC Ones. HTC BlinkFeed aggregates news and social media updates in a somewhat inflexible interface; you can disable it, but to do so, you must set a different home screen as the default; there's no way to remove it the way you can other widgets. Creating home screen shortcuts also takes an extra drag step, and HTC's vertical scrolling is bizarre but works well once you get used to it.

Verizon adds the usual bloatware, but it's not nearly as bad as what AT&T packs in, and it's all neatly stored in a shortcut icon on the home page. You can't remove the individual apps, though.

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
HTC and Beats may be drifting apart, but the HTC One still benefits from Beats Audio. A pair of stereo, front-facing speakers sit at the top and bottom of the front panel; they deliver clear, crisp sound that gets fairly loud, but they still lack bass. It's a completely different story with earphones: The supplied wired earbuds and Beats Audio software deliver bass that's capable of dislodging the fillings from your teeth. HTC adds its own music player, and you still get access to Google Music, Spotify, and a number of other music streaming services.

The UltraPixel camera is quite effective, if not exactly class leading. It's very fast to start and shoot, and takes beautiful, colorful photos outdoors and surprisingly well-lit ones indoors, thanks to the built-in hardware processing. HTC Zoe is the company's Vine competitor; it snaps three-second videos you can't do much of anything with. There's also a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera for self-portraits and video chats.

Our favorite phone on Verizon Wireless is the Samsung Galaxy S4, thanks to its larger display, removable battery, and all-important memory card slot. The Moto X and Droid Mini by Motorola are two additional compelling options; the Moto X offers a beautiful UI and excellent voice activation software, while the Droid Mini follows in the footsteps of earlier Droids with software but is smaller and saves you $100. The Apple iPhone 5 is also clad in aluminum, is the lightest of all, and has the best app catalog in the business, but its 4-inch display is much lower resolution, and the HTC One just has fresher hardware and specs overall. All told, the HTC One is a beautiful smartphone, but now that there are a handful of top-notch smartphone options on Verizon, HTC's job to ensnare consumers is a lot tougher than it would have been back in April.

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Amped Wireless High Power 500mW Dual Band AC USB Adapter (ACA1)

Pros Easy setup. Supports USB 3.0.

Cons Abysmal performance. Awkward design. Bottom Line Released to the market along with Amped Wireless' High Power 700mW Dual Band AC WIFi Router, the High Power 500mW Dual Band AC USB Adapter (ACA1) had too many issues in testing to recommend as a companion to the very good RTA15 router.

By Samara Lynn

Amped Wireless' High Power 500mW Dual Band AC USB Adapter (ACA1) is the adapter released with the company's 802.11ac router, the High Power 700mW Dual Band AC WiFi Router RTA15. Amped Wireless has released a number of decent routers, but this adapter is a miss for the company. It registered some of the worst throughput among USB 11ac wireless adapters we've tested, is an eyesore of design, finally, one of the adapters sent to us for testing died on the bench, mid-test. 

Specs
The ACA1 is a dual-band adapter, supporting up to 300 Mbps at the 2.4 GHz band and 867 Mbps at the 5 GHz band.

The adapter ships with two high-gain dual-band 5dBi antennas that screw onto both sides of the device. It supports USB 3.0 and ships with a USB 3.0 cable and a clip so that the adapter can attach to a laptop screen. It's a fairly large USB adapter, so when clipped to the laptop with two large antennas attached, it's quite awkward.

Setup and Install
Inside the package is a setup disc. The ACA1 adapter is supported on Windows XP and higher as well as Mac OS X. Setup is simple enough; just launch the Setup Wizard from the disc and follow the prompts. The wizard instructs you not to connect the adapter to a USB port until the software portion of the install is complete. As I've noted, a major strength of Amped Wireless is including clear and specific setup instructions.

I didn't have any problems with setup with the initial adapter I tested. After it died (the company stated that I had an early unit from a batch with a known issue) I installed the replacement, but noticed some odd behavior.  After installing the software and connecting to an Amped Wireless router's wireless network, the ACA1 disabled itself in the Windows Network settings. I re-enabled it and was able to connect, but it was an odd sort of quirk.

 Performance
The replacement adapter's performance was disappointing in any wireless mode. Testing with Amped Wireless's RTA15 router and the ACA1 hindered performance as compared with testing with the laptop's integrated adapter. I typically see triple-digit performance in 11ac mode with USB 802.11ac adapters, but in that mode the best I saw from the ACA1 was 78 Mbps. In 802.11n mode, performance was akin to 802.11b or 802.11g throughput, with the adapter turning in performance numbers such as 32 Mbps. Click on the image for comparisons with other 802.11ac USB wireless adapters.

Not a Wireless Win
The ACA1 is not a win for Amped Wireless. Besides the awkward design, the death of the initial adapter leaves me leery (although the company has taken action on the issue). The real problem, however, and main reason for the low score I'm giving the router is the abysmal performance I witnessed. The ACA1 is not a good companion for Amped Wireless' very good RTA15 router. It earned one and a half stars because it's easy to set up and it does work—at least the replacement unit did. The current Editors' Choice for 802.11ac USB adapters is the Edimax AC1200 Wireless Dual-Band USB Adapter.

View the original article here

Amped Wireless High Power 700mW Dual Band AC Wi-Fi Router (RTA15)

Amped Wireless' High Power 700mW Dual Band AC Wi-Fi Router (RTA15) features the latest-generation of Wi-Fi: 802.11ac. The router also has the clean (if somewhat dated) interface, ease of setup, and myriad features we've found in other Amped Wireless routers we've tested. It's an excellent performer with one unfortunate exception: 802.11ac mode. If you are just looking for a speedy dual-band 802.11n router, it's a good choice, but if you are looking specifically for good 802.11ac performance, there are better choices.

Specs
The RTA15 is dual-band, supporting up to a theoretical 300 Mbps at 2.4 GHz and 867 Mbps at 5 GHz. It's not as robust in specs as some premium dual-band 802.11ac routers that support 1750 Mbps.

Ten signal amplifiers help boost performance and range. The router also has three detachable high-gain antennas. There are nine LEDs on the front representing each wireless radio, each LAN port, power, Internet connection, and USB connection.
The rear panel is where the antennas connect. Also on the back are a WPS button, reset button, and the Gigabit Ethernet LAN and WAN ports. There's a USB port also, but it only is for connecting storage, not printers.

Overall the RTA15 is a sturdy, well-constructed router, despite the three long antennas sticking out from it. The router can operate flat on a desktop, on a stand that ships in the packaging, or can be wall-mounted.

Setup
Another plus with the RTA15 is how easy it is to set up. It ships with a setup guide that shows how to connect wirelessly using Windows 7/Vista/8, Mac OS X, iPhone, iPad, and Android tablet, or through WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup). Amped Wireless offers some of the most clear and detailed setup and user guides in the business with its routers.

I set up the RTA15 with a Windows 7 laptop. It was very easy, since the router is already pre-configured with an SSID for each band. Of course, you will want to change the default password of the preconfigured SSID and admin accounts. The easy wireless setup is an improvement over the company's High Power Wireless-N 600mW Gigabit Dual Band Router (R20000G) which required a wired connection to set up from a client.

Once I connected to the router, I was able to access the management interface to tweak configurations. The IP address and router login information are printed on the bottom of the router. The interface opens to a dashboard which shows if the router is connected to the internet plus general settings such as WAN and LAN IP address information, connected clients and wireless LAN information such as SSID and security. There is a basic settings tab where any of these settings can be adjusted; however the meatier more advanced settings are found by clicking the Advanced tab.

Features
There hasn't been any significant change in the feature set since I last reviewed the R2000G which is good since the features are plentiful and the interface of Amped Wireless routers is well-constructed.

You can get more of drill-down on the features in the R2000G review, but to recap some highlights, you can control wireless coverage and also set up a schedule for turning the radio signal on and off. I do like Buffalo's interface for scheduling the radios in its latest AirStation Extreme AC 1750 Gigabit Dual Band Wireless  a bit better, though—its neater and more user-friendly. 

Like the R2000G, the RTA15 has Smart Feature such as QoS where you can enable automatic uplinkor downlink QoS  or can specify bandwidth amounts yourself.
Of course, the router has typical router functionality such as Guest Wireless Networks (supports up to 8 Additional), Wireless Multimedia (WMM) SPI and NAT firewall, Parental Controls (Website Blocking), User Access Control (MAC, IP Filtering) and  IPv6 Support

Performance
The RTA15's performance left me puzzled. The router is excellent at 802.11n mode, yet it has among the worst performance I've tested in 802.11ac mode—and that's testing with Amped Wireless's own ACA1 802.11ac adapter.

For instance, in 802.11n 5 GHz mode, the RTA15 registered a very decent 129 Mbps at a distance of 15 feet, beaten only by top premium routers such as the Linksys EA6400 which managed 150 Mbps at the same distance. I saw triple digit throughput from the RTA15 at 2.4 GHz mode as well.

However, in 82.11ac mode it's among the worst I've tested, managing only 78 Mbps at a distance of 15 feet. Here are performance comparisons with other 802.11ac routers:

Amped Wireless High Power 700mW Dual Band AC Wi-Fi Router (RTA15) Performance in 2.4 GHz Mixed Mode

Amped Wireless High Power 700mW Dual Band AC Wi-Fi Router (RTA15) Performance in 2.4 GHz N-only Mode

Amped Wireless High Power 700mW Dual Band AC Wi-Fi Router (RTA15) Performance in 5 GHz N and AC Mode

Good Router at Everything Except AC
If Amped Wireless re-branded this an 802.11n router and maybe dropped the price a bit, this would be an easy Editors' Choice router. Since it's touted as an 802.11ac router, we have to base a lot of the scoring on how it performs as an 802.11ac device. I think Amped Wireless's less-than-stellar ACA1 adapter, helped hamper the router's 802.11ac performance. When Amped Wireless releases a more robust, adapter that may  improve performance in 802.11ac mode.  As an 802.11n router however, it's impressive and rates 3.5 out of 5 stars. For now, the Editors' Choice for consumer wireless routers, and for 802.11ac routers, is Buffalo's AirStation Extreme AC 1750 Gigabit Dual Band Wireless Router.

View the original article here

Droid Mini by Motorola (Verizon Wireless)

If 5-inch Mega-phones are just too big for your delicate hands, it's time to welcome the Motorola Droid Mini to your table. With the Droid Mini ($99.99 with contract), you save $100 over the very similar Moto X in exchange for suffering through some Verizon bloatware and slightly weaker signal strength. That could be a good deal.

Physical Features and Call Quality
Like the other new Droid phones, the Droid Mini is made of a very slick black Kevlar which looks and feels like plastic. It attracts some serious fingerprints on the back panel. The Droid Mini's slickness bothers me a lot less than the Motorola Droid Ultra's, because it's small enough to securely hold and operate with one hand.

At 4.77 by 2.41 by .35 inches (HWD) and 4.6 ounces, it's smaller and lighter than the Moto X and Verizon's other leading smartphones, but its 4.3-inch TFT LCD screen has the same 1280-by-720 resolution as the Moto X's 4.7-inch AMOLED panel does. That makes for a higher pixel density, at 341 pixels per inch. LCD screens also typically have cooler, less-saturated colors than AMOLED screens do, and the Droid Mini's screen is both a bit brighter and a bit better color-balanced than our Moto X.

Below the screen are always-visible back, home and multitasking buttons, which I prefer to Samsung's now-you-see-them-now-you-don't approach. On the back you find Droid, Verizon and Motorola logos, along with the camera and a sizeable speaker. Like all the other Droid phones, this phone has a sealed-in battery and lacks a memory card slot.

Tested side by side with the Motorola Droid Ultra and Moto X, I found that the Droid Mini had the weakest RF reception of the three phones; it also took the longest to trade from 3G up to LTE. The difference in recepton was only a few dBms, so you'll only see it at the very edges of Verizon's coverage.

The phone's earpiece is loud, even louder than the Droid Ultra's. It flirts with distortion at top volume, but fortunately doesn't quite get there. The speakerphone is louder and fuller, too, and quite useful outdoors. As with the other recent Motorola phones, though, the effective noise cancellation adds a robotic tinge to voices transmitted through the mic in noisy areas.

The Droid Mini paired just fine with my Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset . You can trigger Google's voice command system using the action button on your headset, although you can't just say "OK Google Now" into the headset to launch voice dialing, as you can with the phone itself.

The Droid Mini supports Verizon's CDMA network, the AT&T HSPA+ network (oddly enough), foreign HSPA+ networks on the 900 and 2100MHz (but not 1800MHz) bands at speeds up to HSPA+ 42, and Verizon's LTE network on 700MHz only—for now. A firmware update will bring support for Verizon's AWS LTE spectrum, which will improve LTE speeds where it's implemented. 

The Mini can hit Wi-Fi networks on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies, including the new 802.11ac networks. All the usual other radios are here, too: Bluetooth 4.0 (which works very well for voice dialing and media playback), GPS, NFC and such. No, you can't have Google Wallet; Verizon blocks it.

I got 13 hours, 40 minutes of talk time with the Droid Mini, better than the Droid Ultra but not quite as good as the Moto X. The Mini has a 2000mAh battery, smaller than the other two phones, but its smaller screen size will help balance that out for comparable battery life.

Performance and Apps
The Droid Ultra, Droid Mini, Droid Maxx, and Moto X are all based on the same chipset, Motorola's X8. That's basically a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro dual-core Krait 300 processor running at 1.7GHz with an Adreno 320 GPU. On benchmarks, it holds its own with Snapdragon 600-based competitors, so banish all of those complaints about it being an "older part."

All of these phones have effectively the same performance, which is very good. The phone feels fast and responsive, with smooth scrolling and few delays. Like the Moto X, the Ultra is running Android 4.2.2; Motorola says an Android 4.3 update is coming.

The best way to think of the Droid Ultra's software is that it's the Moto X, with a bunch of Verizon preloads tacked on. Take a look at our Moto X review for a rundown of the thoughtful, useful things Motorola has added to Android: the twist-to-launch camera, the "touchless" Google Now voice controls, and Motorola Assist, for example.

Verizon had nothing useful to add here, but added things anyway. Droid Zap is yet another proprietary sharing protocol. Droid Command Center is a battery status widget. Then there's the undeletable niche-market content, like NFL Mobile and Ingress. Verizon should have saved its time and money here.

I'm also officially tired of Verizon's Eye of Sauron Droid graphics and sound set. It's grim and off-putting, in an era when HTC, Samsung, and even Motorola (with the Moto X) are paying more attention to the human factor in phone UI design. It's time to retire the killer robots.

Multimedia Storage and Playback
The Droid Mini comes with 11.03GB of available storage, down from the Moto X's 11.88GB because of the additional Verizon preloaded apps. There's no memory card slot. That's not a lot of free memory, but it's appropriate for the $100 price point.

Music and video playback do well on the powerful back-ported speaker. It's no HTC One Boomsound speaker, but it's higher quality than the Samsung Galaxy S4's.

The Droid Mini handled all of our music playback formats, but just like the Moto X, it struggled with WMV and Xvid video files; the WMV support topped out at VGA resolution, and one of my Xvid files lost lip sync when I scanned through it. Like on the Moto X, there's an equalizer buried in Settings, so you can adjust bass to your taste.

The 10-megapixel camera uses Motorola's new, very simple camera interface with few options. There's HDR, slow-motion video and a flash option, but not much else. Most annoyingly, you can't cut down on the photo or video resolution to save space. But I'm madly in love with Motorola's Quick Launch camera trick, which lets you wiggle the phone to launch the camera in about 2.7 seconds; after that, the shutter is instantaneous.

Accordingto Motorola, the Droid Mini has the same camera module as the Moto X and Droid Ultra, but I was startled by some differences between the three phones. The Droid Mini handled an outdoor HDR shot much better than the Ultra did, for instance, not leaving the foreground in shadow. The front camera really struggled with blur in dim lighting, whereas the Moto X's had a sharper but noisier picture. Overall, though, we continue with the good-but-not-great camera trend here, with the Samsung Galaxy S4 and Apple iPhone 5 both generally turning in better images.

In my tests, both the front and rear cameras took 1080p videos at 30 frames per second indoors and out; as the lights went down, the color noise level went up.

The Droid Mini, like the rest of Motorola's recent phones, has no wired way to connect to a TV. Instead, you need to use a wireless Miracast adapter like the Netgear Push2TV ($59.99).

Conclusions
Are you shopping with your head, your heart, or your wallet here? The Droid Mini's greasy "Kevlar" body and Eye of Sauron graphics are much less emotionally appealing than the Moto X's soft curves and organic wallpapers. But if you're looking strictly at the numbers, you're getting a very similar phone here (minus a bit of RF reception, and a bit of storage) for $100 less. That's a good buy.

Smaller-phone aficionados should also take a close look at the Apple iPhone 5, of course, which provides excellent performance in an even smaller package. If you're willing to go larger, our Editor's Choice smartphone across all the major carriers remains the Samsung Galaxy S4, thanks to features like tuneable call audio, expandable memory, and a better camera.

View the original article here

Droid Ultra by Motorola (Verizon Wireless)

The Motorola Droid Ultra ($199.99 with contract) has little reason to exist. While it's completely functional, it's the weak sibling in a litter of new Motorola phones, outclassed by competitors on all sides. We're giving it a surprisingly high rating for a phone we wouldn't recommend given the current smartphone landscape, but there you have it: Just because something works, doesn't mean it's your best bet when you consider the competition, like Motorola's own excellent Moto X, which is the same price.

Physical Features and Call Quality
The Droid Ultra's hallmark is its thinness, at 5.4 by 2.8 by .28 inches (HWD) and 4.83 ounces. For all intents and purposes, it feels about the same size as the Samsung Galaxy S4. That makes it a little too wide for my hand, but it'll fit fine in bigger paws. It's made from a hideously slick, black material which slides around in your hands and attracts fingerprints. Motorola says it's Kevlar, but it feels like polycarbonate. The battery is sealed in, and there's no memory card slot.

Most of the front panel is occupied up by a 5-inch, 720p, typically oversaturated AMOLED screen; at 293 ppi, it's lower-density than other similar-size competitors. The shiny back sports Motorola, Droid, and Verizon logos. There's a stark contrast in materials between this and the Moto X, which uses a less slippery, more matte polycarbonate back that's much more pleasant to hold.

The Droid Ultra's larger body allows better RF reception than the smaller Droid Mini, but I found that the Moto X was even better at hanging on to Verizon 4G LTE signals. The earpiece and speakerphone are surprisingly loud for such a slim phone, going to a relatively high volume without distortion. Transmissions through the mic, on the other hand, aren't perfect. I found that Motorola's noise cancellation added a noticeably robotic edge to my voice, although it canceled surrounding noise.

The Droid Ultra paired just fine with my Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset . You can trigger Google's voice command system using the action button on your headset, although you can't just say "OK Google Now" into the headset to launch voice dialing, as you can with the phone itself.

The Droid Ultra supports Verizon's CDMA network, the AT&T HSPA+ network (oddly enough), foreign HSPA+ networks on the 900 and 2100MHz (but not 1800MHz) bands at speeds up to HSPA+ 42, and Verizon's LTE network on 700MHz only—for now. A firmware update will bring support for Verizon's AWS LTE spectrum, which will improve LTE speeds where it's implemented. 

The Ultra can hit Wi-Fi networks on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies, including the new 802.11ac variety. All the usual other radios are here, too: Bluetooth 4.0 (which works very well for voice dialing and media playback), GPS, NFC and such. Verizon blocks Google Wallet.

I got 12 hours, 28 minutes of talk time with the Droid Ultra, a fine result but one that fell short of the Moto X, which clocked in at more than 14 hours. The difference is in the battery: The slender Ultra has a 2130mAh battery, while the Moto X has a larger 2300mAh cell.

Performance and Apps
The Droid Ultra, Droid Mini, Droid Maxx, and Moto X are all based on the same chipset, Motorola's X8. That's basically a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro dual-core Krait 300 processor running at 1.7GHz with an Adreno 320 GPU. On benchmarks, it holds its own with Snapdragon 600-based competitors.

All of these handsets effectively show the same performance, which is very good. The phone feels fast and responsive, with smooth scrolling and few delays. Like the Moto X, the Ultra is running Android 4.2.2; Motorola says an Android 4.3 update is coming.

The best way to think of the Droid Ultra's software is that it's the Moto X, with a bunch of useless Verizon preloads tacked on. Take a look at our Moto X review for a rundown of the thoughtful, useful things Motorola has added to Android: the twist-to-launch camera, the "touchless" Google Now voice controls, and Motorola Assist, for example.

Verizon had nothing useful to add here, but added things anyway. Droid Zap is yet another proprietary sharing protocol. Droid Command Center is a battery status widget. Then there's the undeletable niche-market content, like NFL Mobile and Ingress.

I'm also officially tired of Verizon's Eye of Sauron Droid graphics and sound set. It's grim and off-putting, in an era when HTC, Samsung and even Motorola (with the Moto X) are paying more attention to the human factor in phone UI design. It's time to retire the killer robots.

Multimedia Storage and Playback
The Droid Ultra comes with 11.03GB of available storage, down from the Moto X's 11.88GB because of the additional Verizon preloaded apps. There's no memory card slot. I prefer more free memory on a flagship smartphone: The Droid Maxx delivers with an additional 16GB for another $100, making it a better choice. 

Music and video playback do well on the big, almost bezel-free screen with the surprisingly powerful back-ported speaker. It's no HTC One Boomsound speaker, but it's higher quality than the Samsung Galaxy S4's.

The Droid Ultra handled all of our music playback formats, but just like the Moto X, it struggled with WMV and Xvid video files; the WMV support topped out at VGA resolution, and one of my Xvid files lost lip sync when I scanned through it. Like on the Moto X, there's an equalizer buried in Settings so you can adjust bass to your taste.

The 10-megapixel camera uses Motorola's new, very simple camera interface with few options. There's HDR, slow-motion video and a flash option, but not much else. Most annoyingly, you can't cut down on the photo or video resolution to save space. But I really like Motorola's Quick Launch camera trick, which lets you wiggle the phone to launch the camera in about 2.7 seconds; after that, the shutter is instantaneous.

The Droid Ultra has the same camera module as the Moto X, but I had trouble coaxing consistently good pictures out of the camera. This feels like something a firmware update would handle. Some HDR images had a very dim foreground, showing a bug in the HDR algorithm, and images taken with bright light looked a little soft, and a little washed out. The 2-megapixel front camera got very soft in low light.

Both the front and rear cameras took 1080p videos at 30 frames per second indoors and out; as the lights went down, the color noise level went up.

The Droid Ultra, like the rest of Motorola's recent phones, has no wired way to connect to a TV. Instead, you need to use a wireless Miracast adapter like the Netgear Push2TV ($59.99).

Conclusions
There is no reason to buy the Motorola Droid Ultra. Period. The Moto X offers all of this phone's advantages in a more pleasant form factor, without the Eye of Sauron graphics and with a little more available storage space.

Want a 5-inch screen for your aging eyes? Go for the even more powerful, Editor's Choice Samsung Galaxy S4, with its 1080p screen and higher-quality camera, or the Droid Maxx, with its larger battery.

The Droid Ultra could even hurt consumers: Because this is a Verizon-branded phone, Verizon will market the heck out of the Ultra rather than the superior Moto X. The carrier should know when enough is enough and let this one go.

View the original article here

G3 Wireless Prepaid SIM Card

As you travel around the world, there's no cheaper way to stay connected than by using a locally-purchased SIM card with an inexpensive, unlocked GSM phone. But often that isn't an option. There's only one cell-phone shop open in Barcelona on Sundays. In much of China, it's impossible to set up a SIM card without understanding Chinese. Sometimes your parents are driving you to a small town where they don't sell prepaid SIMs. And if you're traveling to several countries, single-country SIMs often cross borders poorly.

That's why we have roaming SIMs, which you buy when you're still in the U.S. and which offer English-language tech support, the ability to cross borders, and often incoming numbers in various countries. You'll pay a premium for this service, but it could be worth it.

G3 Wireless is a new player in this space, and it's carved out a niche covering a few countries where competitors like OneSimCard, Telestial, Maxroam and Rebelfone don't pay much attention. Specifically, make sure to take a look at G3 if you're going to Canada or India, although Telestial offers single-country SIMs which may be a better bet.

Setup and Compatibility
The G3 SIM card comes in convertible standard/micro and nanoSIM forms, so you can use it with pretty much any unlocked GSM mobile phone. Your phone must have the right bands for the countries you're going to, of course. G3 sells a few basic phones, including a $49 Social Breeze FB101; that's a reasonable price for that phone, but better unlocked phones are available on Amazon.

G3 has one of the simplest setup and pricing strategies of the roaming providers. The SIM card costs $29.95 including $10 free airtime, and it comes with a US or Canadian phone number. G3's competitors typically come with primary Estonian or Channel Islands phone numbers, along with a secondary US or custom country number that they charge around $0.20/minute to receive calls on.

I tested the G3 SIM in Canada and I was impressed by how flawlessly it worked. I popped it into my Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone and I was good to go for calling and texting. I did have to set the phone's data APN in Settings, but instructions on how to do that were clearly marked in the included manual.

Account management is a little patchy. You can check your balance from your phone, and recharge by dialing a toll-free number. On the G3 Web site, you can add money and get a great printout of call details. But there's no single central account management page like OneSimCard offers.

Calling and Data Rates
Ultimately, if these SIM cards work, it's all about the rates. And there G3 falls down a bit.

For the most popular European destinations, G3 is a bit more expensive than Maxroam, Telestial, Rebelfone and OneSimCard.  G3 does give you a free US number, which some of those competitors charge for. But the lower incoming call and data rates offered by the competitors can balance that out.

G3 does have a few bright spots, most notably India and Canada. It's really confusing to buy a SIM card in India as a tourist, and most of the roaming SIMs have nightmarishly high dates rates, over $10/MB. G3 comes in at 49 cents per minute for calls and $1/MB for data, which is by far the best rate of any of the world SIMs.

If you're willing to do without the local US/Canadian phone number (and trade it in for a local Indian one), Telestial sells a $39 Airtel SIM with much lower rates: local calls are a penny a minute and data is only $1.80 for 300MB.

Several of the global SIM purveyors ignore Canada, but G3 goes all-in, offering decent Canadian rates and a Canadian local phone number for free. Incoming and outgoing calls cost just $.25 per minute, with free incoming SMS, outgoing SMS at $.15 and data at $.65/MB.

That actually competes well with Virgin Mobile Canada's 30 cents/minute base prepaid calling rate, although G3's competitiveness declines when you go for Virgin or Koodo's prepaid bundled plans, which have free incoming calls and unlimited texting starting at $35/month. Telestial's prepaid Canada SIM has higher calling rates, but much lower data rates at $25 for 500MB.

Conclusions
Roaming SIMs come in handy if you don't want to stress about how to buy a SIM abroad, or if you're going to multiple countries. G3 Wireless provides good service, especially if you're going to India or Canada. But this is a very competitive field. For most trips, you'll find OneSimCard's lower incoming call rates more seductive, and Rebelfone's data packs are a better value for heavy Internet users.

Also, make sure to check your own wireless provider's roaming rates: especially for light use, AT&T and Verizon currently have some decent deals.

That's why we have roaming SIMs, which you buy when you're still in the U.S. and which offer English-language tech support, the ability to cross borders, and often incoming numbers in various countries. You'll pay a premium for this service, but it could be worth it.

G3 Wireless is a new player in this space, and it's carved out a niche covering a few countries where competitors like OneSimCard, Telestial, Maxroam and Rebelfone don't pay much attention. Specifically, make sure to take a look at G3 if you're going to Canada or India, although Telestial offers single-country SIMs which may be a better bet.

Setup and Compatibility
The G3 SIM card comes in convertible standard/micro and nanoSIM forms, so you can use it with pretty much any unlocked GSM mobile phone. Your phone must have the right bands for the countries you're going to, of course. G3 sells a few basic phones, including a $49 Social Breeze FB101; that's a reasonable price for that phone, but better unlocked phones are available on Amazon.

G3 has one of the simplest setup and pricing strategies of the roaming providers. The SIM card costs $29.95 including $10 free airtime, and it comes with a US or Canadian phone number. G3's competitors typically come with primary Estonian or Channel Islands phone numbers, along with a secondary US or custom country number that they charge around $0.20/minute to receive calls on.

I tested the G3 SIM in Canada and I was impressed by how flawlessly it worked. I popped it into my Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone and I was good to go for calling and texting. I did have to set the phone's data APN in Settings, but instructions on how to do that were clearly marked in the included manual.

Account management is a little patchy. You can check your balance from your phone, and recharge by dialing a toll-free number. On the G3 Web site, you can add money and get a great printout of call details. But there's no single central account management page like OneSimCard offers.

Calling and Data Rates
Ultimately, if these SIM cards work, it's all about the rates. And there G3 falls down a bit.

For the most popular European destinations, G3 is a bit more expensive than Maxroam, Telestial, Rebelfone and OneSimCard. G3 does give you a free US number, which some of those competitors charge for. But the lower incoming call and data rates offered by the competitors can balance that out.

G3 does have a few bright spots, most notably India and Canada. It's really confusing to buy a SIM card in India as a tourist, and most of the roaming SIMs have nightmarishly high dates rates, over $10/MB. G3 comes in at 49 cents per minute for calls and $1/MB for data, which is by far the best rate of any of the world SIMs.

If you're willing to do without the local US/Canadian phone number (and trade it in for a local Indian one), Telestial sells a $39 Airtel SIM with much lower rates: Local calls are a penny a minute and data is only $1.80 for 300MB.

Several of the global SIM purveyors ignore Canada, but G3 goes all-in, offering decent Canadian rates and a Canadian local phone number for free. Incoming and outgoing calls cost just .25 per minute, with free incoming SMS, outgoing SMS at $.15 and data at $.65/MB.

That actually competes well with Virgin Mobile Canada's 30 cents/minute base prepaid calling rate, although G3's competitiveness declines when you go for Virgin or Koodo's prepaid bundled plans, which have free incoming calls and unlimited texting starting at $35/month. Telestial's prepaid Canada SIM has higher calling rates, but much lower data rates at $25 for 500MB.

Conclusions
Roaming SIMs come in handy if you don't want to stress about how to buy a SIM abroad, or if you're going to multiple countries. G3 Wireless provides good service, especially if you're going to India or Canada. But this is a very competitive field. For most trips, you'll find OneSimCard's lower incoming call rates more seductive, and Rebelfone's data packs are a better value for heavy Internet users.

Also, make sure to check your own wireless provider's roaming rates: Especially for light use, AT&T and Verizon currently have some decent deals.

View the original article here

MiFi 500 LTE by Novatel Wireless (Sprint)

Pros Removable battery. Solid Wi-Fi range. Supports Sprint's new tri-band LTE network.

Cons Very basic on-device display. No external antenna port. No global roaming support. Bottom Line The Sprint MiFi 500 is a solid workhorse wireless hotspot for Sprint's new tri-band LTE network.

By Sascha Segan

Need a solid, workhorse hotspot to use on Sprint's network? The Novatel MiFi 500 LTE (free with contract) is a reliable choice, besting its main competitor the Netgear Zing on our tests of speed and range. The Zing beats it out for an Editor's Choice based on its flexibility (especially with its optional desktop cradle), but the MiFi 500 is the one to go to if you need to blanket a larger area with Sprint Wi-Fi.

Physical Features and Management
The MiFi 500 LTE is a nondescript little brick, when compared to the zingy Zing. It's a plastic puck, 3.8 by 2.4 by .7" (HWD) and 3.35 ounces, made of shiny black plastic on top and soft-touch gray plastic around the sides. The back is removable, so you can replace the 1800mAh battery; I haven't found replacement batteries on the market yet, but I'm sure they're coming. The MiFi lacks an external antenna port.

There's a big gray power button on the top face, as well as a few physical navigation buttons. Hit the power button and the dim little OLED screen lights up with signal strength and battery indicators. By flipping through onscreen menus, you can find the Wi-Fi network name and password, check which devices are connected to the hotspot, check signal strength in dBm, and activate WPS setup.

You get many more management options on the simple, clear Web-based management portal. There, you can monitor your data usage, and set up your 2.4GHz-only 802.11 b/g/n network using VPN passthrough, DMZ, port filtering, and port forwarding.

The MiFi supports up to 10 Wi-Fi devices and can connect to an eleventh as a USB modem; plugging it into a Mac or PC it works right away, without installing any drivers. With an extra driver, it gives your PC GPS support.

The MiFi 500, unlike the Zing, is not world-capable. It only works on Sprint's 3G EVDO and tri-band LTE networks. Also note that Sprint's "unlimited" sales pitch doesn't apply to hotspots; all hotspot plans are capped, costing $34.99 for 3GB, $49.99 for 6GB or $79.99 for 12GB.

Performance
Testing Sprint's new LTE network in New York City is an exercise in frustration. It's spotty and inconsistent, strongest in remote parts of the Bronx and Brooklyn. I had to use the Sensorly mapping app to find individual towers that Sprint had activated in Manhattan and Queens, and even then, the network showed a weird behavior with upload tests truncating early.

The reason to buy the new MiFi and Zing is that they support Sprint's new tri-band approach to LTE. Sprint has been taking its existing 1900MHz LTE network and supplementing it with 800MHz, which does much better at penetrating buildings, and 2600MHz, which should provide scorching speed in urban areas. Unfortunately, Sprint's buildout there is even less developed than their 1900MHz buildout, and we haven't had a chance to test the mixed coverage.

But you get what you get, and you try not to get upset. We tested LTE with the MiFi and Zing in five locations. In three of them, the MiFi was considerably faster. In one, the Zing prevailed, and in the last one, the MiFi dropped to 3G while the Zing pulled out decent LTE speeds.

Indoors, the MiFi showed much better range than the Zing. While the Zing's speeds started to drop off after about 50 feet, the MiFi held on well to about 100 feet.

The Zing also showed slightly longer battery life than the MiFi—although remember, the MiFi's battery life really wins because the battery is replaceable. I got 7 hours, 40 minutes with the MiFi compared to 7 hours, 55 minutes with the Zing.

Conclusions
If you're looking for a Sprint hotspot and need long WiFi range without a cradle, the MiFi 500 is your pick. The Netgear Zing is more manageable and flexible, it roams worldwide, and it supports external antennas, so it's a better choice for most people.

If you have a Sierra Wireless Tri-Fi, I'd say hold onto it for now. Sprint just hasn't built out enough of its tri-band LTE network for the advantages to kick in quite yet. I'd peg early 2014 for when these hotspots will start opening up speed and coverage advantages over the Tri-Fi.

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Zmodo 720P HD Wireless Network IP Camera (ZH-IXA15-WC)

Pros Easy QR code setup on smartphones. Excellent video quality. Inexpensive. Software supports multiple cameras.

Cons Clunky Windows desktop software required to record video. No MacOS support. No Web-based interface. No audio. No online "DVR" video storage. Bottom Line The Zmodo 720P HD Wi-Fi surveillance camera with night vision and motion detection has a great price, but that doesn't quite make up for what it lacks compared with the competition.

By Eric Griffith

Zmodo's 720P HD Wireless Network IP Camera (model ZH-IXA15-WC) is a decidedly mixed bag of a home surveillance camera. It sports great video—full 720p support at 1,280 by 720 pixels, which we haven't seen since the Dropcam HD) and fast setup on smartphones using QR codes (like the Compro Cloud Network Camera). But it is hampered by what it lacks: no support for Macs, mediocre Windows desktop software, no access to the camera via a Web site, no audio, and no online video storage like the majority of the competition. Still, you might overlook all of that considering the price: The Zmodo 720P HD now has an MSRP of only $79.99, making it the least expensive home video surveillance cam we've seen.

Design and Setup
The Zmodo 720P HD doesn't veer far from the typical home camera look: It's white and about the size of a bar of soap, measuring 4.0 by 2.6 by 1.3 (HWD). The metal stand adds to the height and depth, attaching to the back with ball into a socket and requiring use of a small Philips head screwdriver. I tested two of these cameras (more on that in a moment) and found the stand attachment worked great on one and terribly on the other; the latter camera would not stop drooping, no matter how much I tightened the screw.

The camera itself has a green LED in front to indicate that it's working, 10 infrared LEDs that come on in low light to provide night vision illumination, and a constantly flashing blue light, probably to indicate network activity, that's visible through the vent grids. The camera isn't in-the-dark stealthy, even if you cover the green LED.

You have three options for watching video on the Zmodo 720P HD: using the Zviewer Windows software, or either of the free Zsight mobile apps for Android or iOS. The mobile apps are a breeze to setup, because Zmodo puts a QR code on the back of the camera. Scan the code with Zsight and the camera's unique ID number is instantly registered to the app. Once the Ethernet-attached cam is visible on your Wi-Fi-connected phone, you can configure the camera's own Wi-Fi settings instantly, and then unplug it and go wireless (except for the always-necessary power, of course).

The Wi-Fi didn't work at all on the first camera I tested. Talking with Zmodo tech support finally led us all to the conclusion that it was defective and I returned the camera for a new one. The second unit worked right out of the box as advertised. It also came with a 16GB microSD card included, part of a current promotion—there's no guarantee you'll also get one. The card goes into a slot on the side that can accept up to a 64GB card.

Setup on the Windows side using Zviewer is more involved. You need to let the Zviewer search for the camera, and if it doesn't find it you have to manually type in the camera ID. The software is, frankly, about as unintuitive as it gets. Zmodo gets no points for catering to consumers with this interface. It may not hamper gearheads much, but I wouldn't recommend it for anyone less than a networking expert. Zviewer can handle video feeds from up to nine Zmodo cameras at a time. 

Performance
There's no denying that the video feed from the Zmodo 720P HD camera, whether viewed on phone or PC, is pretty great. You can set the camera quality to 30 frames per second at 720P if you have the bandwidth. Naturally, when viewing remotely with a mobile phone, frame rate suffers but the picture is still pretty good.

The camera time stamp is displayed by default on the stream, but you can turn it off or add a name for the camera (which is handy if you have multiple Zmodo cams). The time-stamp out of the box was off by a full day and 10 minutes, but syncing it to my PC's clock corrected this.

The lack of audio means you probably won't be using Zmodo 720P HD as a baby monitor (Zmodo PR says a new version with audio is imminent). The night vision works as well as any, and maybe a little too well; the camera likes to default to using the infrared LEDs when it doesn't seem very dark in the room.

Capturing video or stills is another area where the Zmodo falls short. You can capture video locally to your Windows PC hard drive while running Zviewer. There's no online storage. You can supposedly capture video to the microSD card, but the only setting I could find was for stills, by clicking the camera icon on a video feed. The mobile Zsight apps cannot help you capture any images or video, period; they're just for viewing the live stream.

Video capture is best done by setting alerts using motion controls, which can be scheduled to activate at specific times. Again, Zviewer falls short here with a bad interface for setting the schedule—you have to single click in a grid on each quarter of an hour you'd want—and a worse interface for setting the motion detection areas, with even more single right-clicking. You can have alerts sent via email if you know all your SMTP settings; forget about notification via SMS text. None of the capture works without Zviewer running; the camera has no smarts of its own, so it's reliant on a Windows system on the network taking care of business.

Conclusion
The price on the Zmodo is fantastic, without any extras like a DVR service there are no hidden monthly fees, and the direct video streaming quality is great. But Zmodo is marketing the camera for consumers without giving the software the polish it needs. It's nowhere close to unseating our Editors' Choice, the Logitech Alert 750n, and can't hold a candle to other four-star wireless options like Dropcam HD or Y-Cam HomeMonitor. Both shine because of the extras they include. Consider Zmodo 720P HD only if you have the tech and networking expertise to overlook its shortcomings.

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