Rough Cuts Ltd Blog

I welcome comments and respect other people's difference of opinions. But if you're compelled to comment, do it with manners and/or respect. Otherwise, I'll simply ignore your ill-conceived diatribe. Apparently the V-Moda crossfades improve over time, to be specific, one reader suggested 22 hours or more!! Wow. I have left them plugged into a music source for 50 hours now, and well, to be honest they still sound poor by comparison to the beats phones. Although some clarity of the mid range does appear to have improved. However they still play second fiddle to the balanced results from the Beats. Yes, on paper, in terms of frequency response, the V-Moda's should produce better results. The headphones I replaced had a better frequency response than the Beats, but they didn't sound half as good. Numbers don't always give one the full picture. It would also appear that other reviewers (perhaps even with younger ears than mine) wouldn't rate the sonic ability...

Alcatel have surprised me in the past. Whilst this blog has focussed mainly on the high end smartphones. It's interesting from time to time to delve into the cheaper end of the spectrum. Like the used car forecourts, sometimes this end of the market can be more rewarding than the top end. Expectations are lower, therefore delights and surprises are more regular occurrences. Here I'll be giving the briefest of overviews of three current Alcatel offerings. The OT710, OT799 and the Android powered OT980. The 710 is a svelte touch screen device, small and thinner than a palm pre. The screen is noticeably blocky by comparison to top end models and the colours look dour and pale. Although the menu's are well laid out, the resistive screen needs a good push to activate the icons, even swiping the screen to unlock is an annoyance. The camera doesn't appear to auto rotate image's (this really annoys me, especially when people upload pics to facebook etc, and you have to ti...

For those of you that noticed I didn't mention the Nexus S curved screen, you're absolutely right. I spent a whole morning with it looking over its features and hadn't noticed one of its unique selling points. Which goes to show, either it doesn't detract from the user experience, or its a complete waste of space. My belief is the latter, it makes absolutely no difference or benefit at all, and if the 'worlds first curved screen' is enough to rouse your interest levels, then you're an easily misguided fool.

Ok, I've opened the box and, well, to be frank, with the exception of the buttons at the bottom of the screen, it doesn't look that much more different than a Galaxy S. Turning the unit on, and to get started, I have to touch up the Android. Is there some subtle psychological 'connection' here, by touching the android, somehow, I'm accepting it into my life? Then, as per usual, create or sign in using the gmail account I have, noticing in the process that Swype isn't enable out of the box, or as an input option. Why ever the hell not, it's one of the best things about android? Signing in shows us that, it hasn't realised it doesn't have a data connection, so it asks me to connect to wifi, which I do; and then re-input my password. There's a problem with our wifi too so, I skip the process to troubleshoot. I attempt to slide the menu from the top of the phone down, but I notice that the quick access wifi, bluetooth, options are no longer there, li...

Over the last few weeks, I've been exploring options for free online storage. Previously, I've been a keen advocate of Dropbox. So keen in fact that they've upped my storage allowance from the stadard 2gb to over 6gb, simply because I've successfully referred so many new customers. Dropbox has a simple app which creates a folder on your Mac, within your home folder, which simply stays up to date with their servers. Mp3's are indexed, so when you put them into a folder, although they eat into your allowance and do show as on your hard drive, they're simply pulled from a catalogue of pre stored Mp3's on Dropbox servers. So they sync pretty much instantly. There is also a dropbox iphone app, which can be pin protected and the same program also works well on PC. Folders can also be shared with other Dropbox users by right clicking and selecting sharing options. Humyo is a similar service which offers a far more generous 10Gb of storage, although its split, 50% f...

If we're being totally honest, if you're lucky enough to have the choice of Android, Apple, Windows, Bada, or even Symbian, its very easy to overlook a new blackberry handset release as 'insignificant'. For many years now, Rim devices have had 'issues'. Issues that have annoyed, angered, infuriated many an ordinary customer and likewise sales rep. Bluetooth file transfer anyone? Menu's within menu's upon menu's, with sub menu's and sub sections have made the most simple of tasks daunting or impossible. A blackberry without a user manual, is like abseiling equipment in the hands of say, Susan Boyle. But here it is, the latest release of Blackberrys operating system, I forget which number they're up to and for the sake of this review, it's irrelevant anyhow. Lets get started. Boot up is difficult as the battery has zero charge in it. Nevertheless I hunt down a compatible Micro USB charger and plug it in. If the EU have done anything right...

The first time the Powermat came into our stores, it was an expensive option. You had to purchase a case for your device, then you also had to purchase the powermat to charge it. The powermat was priced at around £80. Now they sell an all in one box solution, but for one device only, (the powermat would charge up to three devices, so long as they had the case attached. This all in one box solution is only £40, so clearly its much better value for money. That said, the old powermat was pretty much future proof. So long as the device was powermat compatible, you'd be able to place it on the mat and it would charge. If in the future manufacturers decide that this tech could be in built, you'd still be able to use your old mat. With this, nice though it is, the charging mat is moulded to the exact shape of the case, so even if your shiny new iphone comes with Powermat compatibility in built (which admittedly is unlikely) it won't fit snugly in the charging stand. You'd just...