Category: Smartphones

Smartphones

Best Portable iPhone Charger? RavPower Savior Review

February 4, 2015 / Andy / 1,565 Comments

RAVPower RP-PB18 Savior 9000mAh battery review
Click here to buy on Amazon

If you’re an iPhone user you probably realized by now that iPhones don’t have the best battery life. What can you do about that? For me I like to carry around an extra battery pack so I can charge my phone wherever I’m at in case the battery starts to drain down.

That’s why I wanted to do this review over the RavPower RP-PB18 Savior 9,000 mAh external battery pack with the built-in lightning connector specifically made for Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod) but you can also charge other USB devices with it as well.

I’ll quickly go over the contents of the box. Of course there’s the main battery pack itself. We also have a user guide, warranty card, USB to micro USB charging cable, micro USB to Samsung 30-pin connector, micro USB to mini-USB connector, and a cool little travel pouch.

The main battery pack has a really solid build to it. It has a nice matte suede-like finish to it, and it’s supposed to have a scratch-resistant surface. It does feel really soft. I do like the way it’s built. The size is pretty portable. It’s small and lightweight, just over 8 ounces.

You may be asking yourself “Why is this 9,000 mAh battery a little bit more expensive than say a 12,000 mAh battery sold by the same company?” That’s because the Savior has all these built-in features such as the built-in AC power plug on it so you don’t have to carry around any other cables or accessories. It just plugs right into a power outlet and charges itself.

It’s also mainly made for Apple devices: iPhone, iPad or iPod. It has an Apple lightning cable on it so again you don’t need an extra cable to take with you. All you need is the battery pack. It has everything you need and if you do have another USB device it comes with the cables that you need to charge it.

Like many other external battery packs this has built-in overcharge protection and auto shut-off. It has a USB port on the bottom so you can charge other USB devices. It has a power button on the front along with the power indicator light so if you press the power button once it will show you how much battery is left on the pack (4 lights is 100%, 3 lights is 75%, 2 lights is 50%, and 1 light is 25%).

Let’s talk about some of the results I’ve seen using this RavPower Savior battery pack with my iPhone 6. The first time I charged my iPhone 6 with the battery pack it was at 42% and it took it to 96% in 57 minutes. The second time I charged it I went from 41% to 90% in 47 minutes so that gives you an idea of how fast the battery pack charges the iPhone 6. After those 2 charges I still had 75% of the battery left on the Savior.

With that 5 volt output it’s not going to be the fastest charge, but it is pretty decently fast in my opinion for a battery pack of this size. The iPhone 6 battery is 1800 mAh so the Savior can charge it about 4 times from 0 to 100% so it does pack a pretty good amount of power.

In my opinion if you own an Apple device: an iPhone, iPad, or iPod then the RavPower Savior battery pack may be one of the best options that you can get for an external battery because it has everything built in and it is way more convenient than other battery packs. It’s portable, small, has a nice finish to it, and I see it lasting a very long time.

Apple iPhone 5s Review: New Features & Should You Upgrade?

October 4, 2013 / Andy / 1,560 Comments

Apple iPhone 5s Review

New Features + Should You Get It?

Click here to order an unlocked iPhone 5s

iPhone 5s Introduction

This is my full in-depth iPhone 5s review. Externally the iPhone 5s looks almost exactly the same as the iPhone 5. It’ s sporting the same aluminum-style shell with the microphone, speaker, and Lightning connector at the bottom. The same 4-inch 1136×640 Retina display and the same 1.2 Megapixel front facing camera. It also has 4G LTE support and comes in the same storage capacities: 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB.

Speed & Performance

The speed of the iPhone 5s is blazingly fast thanks to the new 64-bit A7 processor. If you own an iPhone 4S or earlier iPhone you’ll be immediately captivated by the quickness of the 5s. Even iPhone 5 users will notice the speediness as the iPhone 5s claims to double the 5’s CPU and graphics performance. I’ve noticed a huge speed increase in app launching and loading, multitasking management, taking photos, even shuffling songs seems even more instantaneous. Playing games is definitely a treat on the 5s. When put to the test, the 5s came out ahead in nearly every benchmark test. As of right now, according to the benchmarks, it’s safe to say the iPhone 5s is possibly the fastest smartphone available.

Battery Life

The iPhone 5s does not have a magical new everlasting battery that we all dream about, but it shows no decrease in battery life either. Apple says it can get up to 10 hours talk time, 10 days on standby, 40 hours music playback, or 10 hours video playback on a single charge. I’ve concluded that the standard “daily overnight charge” is still needed. On a regular day I can wake up with 100% and make it through 16 hours and by bedtime have anywhere from 10% to 20% remaining. Battery life does have a slight increase thanks to the M7 coprocessor taking some of the load off of the main chip.

Camera

The iPhone 5s camera is a huge improvement & does take some awesome photos and videos. It’s still an 8 megapixel camera, but each pixel is bigger, and the sensor is larger as well. The aperture was increased to 2.2. That along with the new dual LED flash improves the quality of photos in low-light conditions. Also new is image stabilization, and burst mode. A cool new video recording feature is the slo-mo feature which captures video in 720p HD at 120 frames per second and allows you to slow down the whole video or a certain portion. Overall, the new camera can produce stunning photos and HD videos.

Touch ID

The most talked about feature of the iPhone 5s is the new fingerprint sensor called Touch ID. The fingerprint scanner is built into the all new redesigned home button. It takes about 20 seconds to set up a new fingerprint. As of right now the authorized fingerprints can be used to unlock the device and make iTunes and App Store purchases. Overall, I think the Touch ID feature improves the user experience more than being a gimmick.

iOS 7 Software

A match made in heaven. That is the best way to describe the iPhone 5s and the new iOS 7 software. The general layout is the pretty much the same as iOS 6, but now there are brand new designs, icons, colors, fonts, gestures, and animations. The new multitasking is very fluid on the 5s. Spotlight search is the quickest I’ve ever seen it, and Siri seems snappier as well. iOS 7’s makeover includes new animations and parallax 3D effects. The new Control Center adds a much-needed feature to iOS 7, giving quick access to popular settings and apps that make the user experience more efficient. iTunes Radio is a nice feature as well, allowing you to create your own music stations. So from what I can tell, the iPhone 5s and iOS 7 were meant to be together.

Conclusion

If I had one word to describe the iPhone 5s it would be: delight. It’s a delight to use this phone, with the power it has paired alongside iOS 7. So the question is should you get it? If you own an iPhone 4S or earlier, yes I would highly recommend getting the iPhone 5s. If you’re an iPhone 5 user, I wouldn’t recommend upgrading to the 5s unless you’re a hardcore camera lover or have the need for speed. iPhone 5 users should probably stick it out and wait for the iPhone 6 or if you want a bigger screen you’ll probably want to switch to Android. With its new power and speed, its new camera and fingerprint sensor, and new software design, the iPhone 5s is a fantastic smartphone.

By Andy Slye

Top 7 New iOS 7 Features

June 18, 2013 / Andy / 1 Comment

iOS 7 is packed with many awesome new features. These are my top 7 best new features in iOS 7.

7. The New Design

The new modern design for iOS 7 is fresh, clean, flat, and minimalistic. Apple completely revamped the whole iOS environment and even redesigned all the default app icons. The new design is very transparent with a lot of translucency built into it. For example, you can see that the default weather app looks way better. It looks very similar to the new Yahoo weather app that just came out recently. Needless to say, I love this new design.

6. The New Siri

Siri got a redesigned interface, and it can do more tasks like change settings in your phone, turn on Bluetooth, check your voicemail, and all kinds of other cool stuff. It recognizes a more natural speech pattern, and you can actually change the voice. All you ladies out there who wanted a sexy Siri guy voice are now in luck. I still hope they give us the ability to turn off Siri’s annoying sound effect though. Maybe these new features in Siri will make me use it more because I never use Siri. Ever.

5. iTunes Radio

Apple’s new radio streaming service is similar to Pandora and Spotify. iTunes Radio is built natively into the music app in iOS 7. I feel like iTunes Radio might be a good competitor to Pandora and Spotify because it’s already on iOS 7 which gives it an advantage over third-party apps. I’m eager to experiment with iTunes Radio and see how well it works. Pandora and Spotify may be in for a fight.

4. Photos & Airdrop

The Photos app has a few new features called Collections and Moments. Photos are now organized by your location data and the time that you took the pictures. So say if you take a trip and you take pictures with your iPhone when you’re on that trip, the Photos app will organize the pictures based on that trip’s location and time. You will have the ability to go into each Collection or Moments where you can see different times during that trip. AirDrop is a cool new feature that basically lets you share anything that’s shareable (like a photo or video) with any of your friends that are in close proximity to you. You can even share it with people who aren’t your friends as long as they have Airdrop turned on and you give them access. This creates a super easy way to share stuff without emailing or messaging whatever you’re sharing.

3. The New Notification Center

The Notification Center was given some cool new features in iOS 7. It’s split up into three categories now: Today, All, and Missed. Today is just a basic glance at your day: the date, weather, any scheduled events on your calendar, any reminders, traffic, etc. You can access the Notification Center from any screen, even the lock screen. All shows all your notifications, and Missed shows any missed notifications. These new features should definitely make the Notification Center more intuitive to use in iOS 7.

2. The New Multitasking

This definitely needed an update. The new Multitasking in iOS 7 should make multitasking very efficient and easy to use. It shows off a new design. Now you can see all the icons that are running in the background along with a preview of them. To end a background app, just swipe up on the app’s preview. This allows you to get a better handling of background tasks along with a better view of all the background tasks. Another cool feature of iOS 7 is all your apps get automatically updated so you don’t have to worry about updating your apps manually. They all get pushed.

1. Control Center

Yes, we have all been waiting for Control Center. SBSettings is an app that has provided a similar functionality to jailbroken users for years. It’s definitely one of the most popular because everybody loves those quick shortcuts to changing settings. That’s what the new Control Center for iOS 7 does. It gives you quick access to changing settings, turning Wi-Fi off, turning airplane mode on, changing brightness levels, iPod controls, calculator shortcut, etc. Control Center even has a built-in flashlight app so you don’t have to go out and download a third-party flashlight app. To access the Control Center, just swipe up from the bottom on whatever screen you’re on, even the lock screen. It gives you quick access to different things that you can change, enable, or activate. Control Center may not seem like much, but I promise it will give you a better iOS experience in the long run.

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How To Copy Any DVD To iPad, iPod, iPhone

March 28, 2013 / Andy / 1,560 Comments

Copy a DVD to iPad, iPod, iPhone – The Easy Way!

Click here to download MacX DVD Ripper Pro
Visit the MacX Website

Video Transcript:

In this video I’ll be showing you step-by-step how to copy any DVD movie to your iPhone, iPod or iPad using a great Mac application called MacX DVD Ripper Pro.

MacX DVD Ripper Pro, in my opinion, is the best and easiest way to rip or copy DVD movies to your Mac if you’re planning to put those movies on your iOS device later. It’s very simple to use. It can copy a DVD in just a few clicks. It’s extremely fast and saves you a ton of time because there’s no need for additional converter programs and you don’t have to configure any settings. It will automatically copy the DVD in the best video quality that is compatible with your device so it fits perfectly on the screen. And it comes with free lifetime updates so you know you’re always able to copy the latest movies when they come out.

First you’ll want to download MacX DVD Ripper Pro

Next you’ll load your movie disc into your DVD drive and open MacX DVD Ripper Pro. Once it’s opened you’ll click the DVD button in the top left and choose OK. Once the output profile window pops up you’ll select Apple device then choose iPhone, iPad or iPod depending on what device you have. Then select the model of your device and click Done.

It will automatically select the main movie file for you. Then you can select the folder where you’d like the movie to be copied to. So you can click Browse then click Run and it will start to copy the DVD.

Once it’s finished the window will pop up with your video in it. Now you’ll just open up iTunes and browse to the folder and drag and drop the video file into iTunes. And when it’s done copying you’ll sync your iPad, iPod or iPhone with iTunes via the USB cable.

Now once your device shows up in iTunes you’ll click on it then click the Movies section. Then select sync movies, click apply, and your iOS device will sync & copy the DVD movie. And now when you open up the Videos app on your device your movie will be in there. Easy! That’s my review on MacX DVD Ripper Pro from MacXDVD.com. Hope you enjoyed!

Cheapest iPhone Plan: How To Save Over $2,000!

March 10, 2013 / Andy / 1,570 Comments

Video Transcript:

Hey what’s up everybody? Today I’m going to be giving you my top six tips on how to get the cheapest iPhone plan possible. Stay tuned.

Ok so my first tip is to get the cheapest calling or voice plan that will fit your needs and stay within your budget. A lot of people don’t use or even need unlimited calling plan or voice minutes. With all the rollover minutes these days I promise you, I’ve been an iPhone customer for four years and I’ve never come close to using all my voice minutes. I don’t know, maybe people just don’t like to call me. No but seriously the majority of people these days can get by with the minimum voice minutes. You don’t need unlimited minutes. Now if you’re that type of user, you know Grandma’s going to be calling you every night then yeah you’ll have to get that. But for the majority of people only stick to the cheapest calling plan which is forty bucks a month for 450 minutes.

Okay so tip #2 is basically the same concept as tip number one except it’s dealing with data. Just get the minimum amount of data that you need to get by. Now I believe the minimum data plan that you can get is 300 megabytes for $20/month. Now again, most people can get by with 300 megabytes, and here are a few ways to do that. Set you phone to use WiFi as much as possible, whenever you can. That way you’re not using your cellular data to watch YouTube videos, stream music from Pandora, or download apps. Those three things will use up the most data, and you’re going to want to be on Wi-Fi when you’re doing that. Also be careful of what apps are using what. Some apps like to download data in the background. They like to use your location services and track you by GPS. That will use a lot of data and it will actually lower your battery life so keep that in mind. So those are some ways that you can cut down on your data usage so that you are able to get the minimum data plan.

Okay so tip #3 is to not get a texting plan. You probably think I’m crazy but with an iPhone, it comes with iMessage which is Apple’s own service for sending messages throughout any iOS device, whether it be from an iPhone to an iPad vice versa. Anything that is made by Apple that has iMessage installed will send it over iMessage instead of using your SMS plan. It’s built in right into the SMS app. If you go into it and it turns blue instead of green, that means it’s using the iMessage instead of the regular SMS. Now this will allow you to send text, video, pictures, anything over iMessage using data and even using wireless once you’re on WiFi. So it will use Wi-Fi. It won’t use your data. Now this feature works great when you’re texting other people with iPhones, but what about if you got to text a person with an Android or another smartphone? Well this is where you have to use Google Voice, and I love Google voice. I’ve been using it for over three years now. It has saved me a ton of money. Basically what it does is you sign up for Google Voice, it’s free if you have a Gmail account. Go to Google.com/voice. And you get to pick a new number, any number that you want, a standard US number. And that number will get forwarded to your iPhone and you will be able to get text messages and send text messages to anybody you want using that number. So what I do is I usually give out my Google Voice number to people that do not have iPhones and they text that number and I can text for free with that. And my contacts with iPhones I can send them free text messages through iMessage so that way it completely cuts out my texting plan. I save $20/month and you can also do that too. It’s super easy and it’s awesome. I love it so check those out. It’s Apple iMessage and Google Voice.

Tip #4 – Decline a warranty. Do not buy an extra warranty. I promise with a little bit of carefulness and a case for your iPhone you will avoid 99 percent of the problems that you might potentially have. I’ve dropped my phone hundreds of times and all I got’s like a $10 case on it and my iPhone is still in mint condition. You’ll be able to save a hundred bucks by not getting the warranty. My only advice to you is to not drop it in the toilet.

Tip #5 is to buy an older version of the iPhone. Now I know with Apple it’s always fun to have the latest and greatest but it’s okay to buy the iPhone that came out two years ago. Usually you can get the older iPhone for free with a new two year contract, and it runs the same software as the new iPhone usually. If not you can always jailbreak it. But don’t be afraid to get the old older version of the iPhone. So if you’re looking to save a lot more money upfront you can you can do that by getting the older version of the iPhone.

And last but not least tip #6 is to try to find an employer or student discount. I know personally I have a discount that gets me 15% off so don’t, don’t miss out on that. Check with your work, check with your school. With a simple Google search you’ll probably be able to find a discount for you that you can use. It will save you money each and every month. Do not pass that up.

So those are my six tips on how to save tons, tons of money over the course of two years. You can save money by doing these things no matter what wireless carrier you’re on. So try these out and I hope this helps so that we can all continue to watch YouTube wherever we are for less money. If you like this video, if you enjoyed it please Subscribe. Please hit the Like button and comment and tell me if any of these tips work for you or if you’re going to use any of these tips or if you’re already using some of these tips. I’ll be talking to you guys and girls later. Keep having fun out there. I’m out.

Category: Smartphones

Best Portable iPhone Charger? RavPower Savior Review

Apple iPhone 5s Review: New Features & Should You Upgrade?

Apple iPhone 5s Review