Day: September 21, 2014

Acer Liquid Jade in the flesh, first impressions

Abe Olandres Leave a comment

Lazada Philippines

First announced during in June at the Computex 2014 in Taiwan, Acer Philippines finally released the Liquid Jade in the country last August in an attempt to capture the mid-range segment of the handset market.

acerjade

This 5-inch smartphone is perhaps the nicest-looking Android handset Acer has ever made with an all-glossy treatment that doesn’t look or feel cheap. The rounded corners and curved back reminds us of the iPhone 3G, only slightly larger yet retains a thinner and lighter profile.

acer-jade

The all-glass front panel is covered with Gorilla Glass 3. The glass is cut along the same contour as the phone and the edges slightly curves outward as it hits the frame.

acerliquid

A silver trimming surrounds the entire body with a thin polycarbonate strip in a polished steel appearance. Perhaps that’s what inspired the handset designers from Acer to call it the Liquid Jade.

Aside from the Acer logo at the bottom corner of the front panel, the speakerphone looks very prominent with that circular metal piece that shines like a little Swarovski ornament.

jace

At the back side, the 13-megapixel rear camera is prominently featured and protrudes from the curved body. Just on the left of it are the LED flash and noise-canceling microphone. On the other end, is the circular speakers that seems to have been done more for form rather than function.

luquidjadeback

The power button is at the top end along with the 3.5mm audio port. The volume controls are on the right side. The SIM card cradle and microSD slot are tucked along the left side. The Liquid Jade can accommodate 2 nano-SIM cards. The phone is perhaps one of the very few ones that uses a nano-SIM, along with the iPhone and the HTC One M8.

acerliquidjade

Acer also created a multi-purpose cradle that allows for a single tray to hold two nano-SIMs. The unique design of the tray allows for the 2nd SIM tray to be used by a microSD card, positioned horizontally to fit the smaller slot for the nano-SIM.

So yes, it’s a dual nano-SIM but when you need a microSD card, you cna only use one SIM tray. It’s an acceptable trade-off considering the size and thinness of the device.

liquidjade

Acer’s has a custom UI called AcerFloat UI placed on top of Android 4.4. It’s simple and intuitive with a few custom features like Float Caller, Acer SnapNote, and Quick Mode to allow you to switch homescreen modes depending on your preference.

The Liquid Jade is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core chip from Mediatek and 1GB of RAM. While it’s not that impressive in terms of hardware’s raw power, it’s enough to run Android Kitkat smoothly.

acer-liquid-jade

Acer Liquid Jade S55 specs:
5-inch IPS ‘Zero Air Gap’ display @ 1280×720 pixels
Corning Gorilla Glass 3
MediaTek 1.3GHz quad-core processor
1GB RAM
8GB storage (expandable up to 32GB via microSD)
13MP rear camera with f/1.8 aperture, 0.3-second autofocus
1080p video recording
2MP front camera
3G/HSDPA, Dual-SIM capable
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
2100mAh battery
Android 4.4 KitKat
140.5 x 69 x 7.5mm (dimensions)

The most interesting feature in the list above for us would be the 13MP rear camera with an f/1.8 aperture. We’ve tried it a couple of times and took really good photos with it.

We also ran some of our standard benchmarks and got these scores:

The Liquid Jade got a score of 17,995 on Antutu benchmark and 7,019 on Quadrant Standard. Score for Nenamark 2 is at 55.5fps. The scores are decent but nothing to really brag about.

Will post more about the Liquid Jade on our full review in a week or two.

The post Acer Liquid Jade in the flesh, first impressions appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines, Tech News & Reviews.

White Chocolate Chip Cookies

celia kusinera Leave a comment
White Chocolate Chip Cookies
This is more on the periodically running saga of using up ingredients about to expire. We had several bars of excellent Cailler baking white chocolate from my sister in Switzerland. It was expiring at the end of last month so we had to think of a way of using it very quickly! Fortunately, the cookie recipe we found in the Nestle website was really spot on. And it was so easy that my youngest was able to do all by herself. I think we just made a few adjustment on some ingredients and reduced the cooking time. Other than that it was really really good and delicious especially for a first time bake by a 13-year-old.


White Chocolate Chip Cookies


White Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup [250 g] butter - softened to room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 1/4 cups plain flour
2/3 cup cocoa
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda [baking soda]
1/4 tsp fine salt
2 cups [350 g] white chocolate chips
  1. Preheat oven to 180°C/fan 160°C/350°F.
  2. [Optional] Grease and line baking sheets.
  3. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.
  4. Cream butter and both sugars in a bowl with an electric mixer. Beat until light and fluffy - about 5 minutes.
  5. Add vanilla and the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
  6. Mix in the flour mixture in batches into the butter mixture.
  7. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the white chocolate chips until well combined.
  8. Form into balls, about 1-inch in diameter, then arrange on the baking sheets making sure to leave enough room between for it to expand.
  9. Bake for 11-12 minutes.
  10. Cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes then remove and cool completely on wire racks.

Oculus reveals new Crescent Bay prototype

Abe Olandres Leave a comment

Lazada Philippines

Oculus has just revealed a newer prototype of their VR headgear. Dubbed the Crescent Bay, the new gear has been re-designed to allow 360-degree head tracking and faster frame rates for better and more realistic viewing experience.

oculus

The new prototype also comes with a built-in headphone for an immersive experience and and attached rear camera allows the user to complete rotate around the VR world at a complete 360-degree turn.

oculus-crescent-bay

The Crecsent Bay model isn’t really for developers and might be a pre-cursor to a 3rd developer kit (DK3) to be made available to developers on a later time.

Oculus was bought by Facebook last March for a reported $2 billion. We were able to try the Oculus Rift last year but it was an old developer kit.

The post Oculus reveals new Crescent Bay prototype appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines, Tech News & Reviews.

Globe, Smart changes load sharing to combat text scams

Abe Olandres Leave a comment

Lazada Philippines

Due to rampant incidents of load sharing scams, both Smart and Globe have changed the way they operate sharing of eLoads. Majority of text scams deceive subscribers into claiming free credits but inputting and replying to specific SMS queries.

Globe started making restrictions in their Share-a-Load services several weeks ago (first time we experienced this was September 1). The new scheme requires confirmation that a load is being shared and requires another affirmative answer to validate it.

globe-share-load

Globe has also limited the amount of sharing to just Php300 and has removed the Php500 option (which is the usual and maximum amount used by text scammers). They explained this in Globe’s updated FAQ:

P500 is the most commonly used amount of Share-A-Load scammers. You have probably received a text message from an unknown number asking you to send Php500 to a number starting with 2 instead of the usual 0 (e.g. 2917xxxxxxx). Doing this (for instance, sending Php500 to 2917xxxxxxx) will send P500 to that number. Making the P500 denomination unavailable, helps protect you from being victimized by these scammers.

Note that the P300 denomination is available to Globe Postpaid customers only. Also, effective August 9, 2014, the P500 denomination via Share-A-Load will be temporarily unavailable until further notice. You can use other denomination such as P1- P150 or P300.

For prepaid, the maximum load amount per transaction is Php150. The SMS confirmation needs to be responded to within 5 minutes in order for it to be validated.

Smart has also followed suit and released an infographic about it today:

Smart’s website was not updated if there were changes in the maximum amount that they can do for Pasaload.

Both Smart and Globe have made significant changes to the way they processes loading sharing via SMS. Biggest of them would be the text confirmation. In Globe’s case though, legitimate subscribers would have a harder time if they want to send out bigger denominations (like having to share Php300 and Php200 separately and pay Php2 charge instead of Php1).

At least, both telcos are acknowledging the rampant problem of text scams. The solutions may be crude and simple, something that will not really solve the problem complete, but it’s a start.

The post Globe, Smart changes load sharing to combat text scams appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines, Tech News & Reviews.