Archos has unleashed a beast in the 64 Xenon. With its 6.4-inch display, this is a phablet to put the HTC One Max and LG G Pro 2 to shame.
That is, if bigger is always better. In the case of the Xenon, I'd argue that's not the case.
This behemoth will prove slightly too unwieldily for most hands, and it feels like removing some of the unnecessary excess bezel would go to some way to fixing that problem.
But if you don't mind a phone that will demand both hands to use, there are some solid positives - including the £199 (around US$335, AU$375) price tag.
That 6.4-inch HD IPS display has a 1280 x 720 resolution, the same as the Archos 50c Oxygen's 5-inch screen. However we found it to be pleasingly bright and crisp, especially when we tested it with some videos.
Another pro packed into this affordable phone is the rear 8MP camera with LED flash, which is also capable of 1080p video. We were really able to appreciate how good the pictures looked, especially on that big display.
There's less to be enthusiastic about on the back of the device though. The brushed metal finish doesn't feel too classy, while the power and volume buttons, rather than being placed on the sides, are actually on the back towards the edges.
It felt awkward to use them, and especially considering the size it took our fingers a while to find the right button when needed.
Inside, the quad-core 1.3GHz processor and 1GB of RAM are unremarkable, but felt sufficient and provided smooth performance during our play. It's just a shame that it feels a tad behind the times with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.
4GB of internal memory also feels a bit too meagre. Luckily that can be changed via the MicroSD slot.
Early verdict
The Archos 64 Xenon is as big as it gets, but if the size doesn't put you off then you're looking at a reasonably-spec'd, budget-priced phablet with a decent screen to boot.
BBM for iPhone and Android has proved a rare recent success for BlackBerry
The next update for BlackBerry's ever-improving BBM app for iPhone and Android, will soon bring group photo messaging into play, the company has confirmed.
In a blog post this weekend, the Waterloo-based firm said it was continually looking to add new features in order to keep customers happy and photo messaging within group chats is next on the agenda.
"We know customers want to be able to share pics with multiple people in a chat. The next release of BBM will support photo sharing in multi person chats," Jeff Gadway, the firm's head of product and brand marketing wrote on the BlackBerry Blog.
The support will come as BBM looks to make up ground on other popular messaging apps like Google Hangouts, Apple's iMessage and Facebook-owned WhatsApp, which already have the ability to distribute photos to more than one person.
Bigger files
Additionally, the company is upping the maximum file size users are able to share from 6MB to 16MB.
That's 16 seconds of 1080p HD video, according to BlackBerry, or more pertinently, the difference between sharing a full resolution photo taken with a DSLR and one taken with a smartphone camera.
"What this means is that you'll be able to send bigger pictures, larger documents and longer videos," Gadway added.
The company didn't reveal when the update would be dropping, but considering the frequency of the changes so far, then it's unlikely to be too far away from launch.
Google Projected Mode coming to a Mercedes-Benz near you
Google's long-awaited in-car solution be called 'Projected Mode' and will 'seamlessly integrate Android smartphones within the vehicle's dashboard unit.
That's according to a job posting from Daimler, the parent company of German auto giant Mercedes Benz, who're seeking a software engineer to assist with deploying the technology within its fleet of luxury cars.
It seems, judging from the posting that Google's solution will see the smartphone or tablet's display mirrored on a larger display within the car's central control unit.
The posting reads (translated): "You are responsible for the application integration of smartphones using the Google Android operating system by means of Google projected mode to the head-unit. This is a technology for the seamless integration of Android smartphones in the Mercedes-Benz head-unit. Smartphone functions such as play, for example, media content, send messages / receive phone calls, navigation, etc., can be controlled and displayed on a safe for the driver way through the vehicle's controls.
"Google-projected mode, you develop one of the most significant technological innovation in the field of telematics, which should be used in all Mercedes-Benz vehicles and in all markets worldwide."
Interestingly enough, there's also an posting requesting applications for a software engineer for Apple's iOS in the Car, which appears to confirm Mercedes-Benz will be bed-hopping between the two great rivals.
Aside from the interchangable Apple/Google mentions, the two job postings read almost word-for-word, which would suggest that whichever smartphone they own, Mercedes drivers will be able to sync up their handset. Pretty cool.
Except in the case of the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom, but the less said about that the better.
The HTC One
Consumers are anxious to get their hands on the latest cameraphones too, as they've gone from a bullet point on the box to something that can almost compete with standalone compact snappers.
Want to see them in action? Check out TechRadar's best cameraphones test
But while they're marketed in megapixels there's a whole lot more that goes into making a good cameraphone and quite a few differences between them, so we're taking a look at three of the most popular options on the market
HTC One
While most flagship phones are focused on driving the megapixels up, HTC took a brave approach with the HTC One, by focusing on the size of the pixels rather than the number. It only has a 4 megapixel sensor, but those megapixels are dubbed 'UltraPixels', which literally just means they're bigger than the pixels you'd find on a standard cameraphone.
How Ultrapixels work
Camera sensors on smartphones are tiny, as increasing the size would cause it to take up more space on a handset and require a bigger lens too, so most smartphones have similar sized sensors and by upping the megapixel count you're really just jamming more pixels into the same space, which means making them smaller.
Smaller pixels take in less light which make them less able to accurately recreate an image and can lead to noise and other distortions.
Bigger pixels like those found in the HTC One can capture more light, 300% more light than many 13 megapixel cameras in fact, allowing for more detailed images. As more light can be taken in the HTC One also performs a lot better in dark environments than most smartphone cameras.
The only downside to this approach is that the images are lower resolution, so while they might look fine on your phone screen they don't fare so well when blown up.
The different aperture sizes
As well as having bigger pixels, the HTC One's f/2.0 aperture is also larger than many of its competitors. For example the LG G2 has a f/2.4 aperture, where less f-stops equate to a larger aperture, meaning the HTC One's camera lens opens wider when taking photos and more light gets taken in.
The HTC One also has optical image stabilisation, which counters shaky hands by using a gyroscope to move the lens in the opposite direction of the motion, to avoid blurry images.
LG G2
The LG G2 takes the opposite approach to the HTC One, packing 13 megapixels into a sensor of roughly the same size. In fact, at 1/3.06 of an inch it's actually marginally smaller than the HTC One's 1/3 of an inch sensor.
The LG G2 camera
As mentioned above it also has a smaller aperture, so less light gets in and the pixels can capture less of what light does enter the sensor. On the flip side images captured by the LG G2 can be blown up a lot bigger than those from the HTC One without a noticeable loss in quality.
It also means that using the cameras digital zoom is a lot more viable. Most smartphone cameras don't have an optical zoom because it would require the lens to stick out, so instead they leverage their megapixels to zoom in digitally, lowering the megapixel count the further they zoom.
Obviously starting from 13 megapixels allows you to zoom further with less loss in quality than when starting with 4 as on the HTC One.
How optical image stabilisation works
One thing it shares with the HTC One is that they both feature optical image stabilisation. This is something which is becoming increasingly common in smartphones but quite a few still don't have it, even at the high end.
The LG G2 also has a multi-point auto focus, meaning that it can automatically focus on up to nine subjects at once, even if they're moving, and it will automatically pick out faces and other things you're likely to want to focus on, so in busy images it's easy to ensure that everything you want to be in focus is.
But a camera is nothing without its lens, so LG has used scratch-resistant sapphire crystal glass to protect it.
