Smartphones & Accessories

Samsung helped start the current trend of bigger phones with bigger screens when it first unveiled the original Galaxy Note back in 2012. The screen has since grown, while the phone’s body has trimmed down, turning what was once one of the largest handsets into one that fits in with much of the pack. The Note 5 isn’t a big leap from its predecessor, but it does have some new features that make better use of its constituent parts.

Samsung raised the curtain on its two newest smartphones, the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge+, both of which sport large displays. Staying true to their predecessors, they are designed to be premium handsets that don’t diverge very much from each other. The specs are nearly identical between them, though one is flat while the other curves.

As the crowning jewel of Microsoft’s software empire, Office 365, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote, was once exclusive to PCs and Surface tablets. Not anymore. Microsoft recently pushed its Offce productivity suite to various rival smartphone and tablet products and as a result, Office 365 is accessible on more devices than ever before.  

Keeping your smartphone safe can mean more than just ensuring it doesn’t fall into a toilet or hard concrete and meet an untimely death. It also means taking proper steps to protect the data—your personal data—stored on that phone to keep the wrong people away from it. If smartphone security is a concern of yours, then you may want to consider these methods for ramping your privacy and protecting what’s yours.

It might seem a little far-fetched when thinking of a smartphone attached to an object of considerable size, like a DSLR camera lens or even a pair of binoculars. Products like that are out there, amplifying the focal length of the phone’s camera, and thereby changing the very scope (pun intended) of images it can capture. Carson doesn’t have a DSLR lens, but it does make monoculars and binoculars with adapters for the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy devices.

Maybe it’s Murphy’s Law, but dropped calls usually happen at the most inopportune times. An important or engaging conversation cut short by a sudden drop in reception can be annoying—even more so if it happens with any sort of regularity. Cell phone signal boosters are designed to amplify sending and receiving those signals, and weBoost has products that cover both your car and home.

A smartphone camera may be limited by its size, but it doesn’t have to be when accessories can enhance and take things further. Carson makes a number of different magnification products, including lenses for the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy devices that turn them into true macro cameras and microscopes.

Whether you realize it or not, your smartphone keeps tabs on your location almost all the time. That may not be an issue for you under most cases, but if you’re connected to an unfamiliar Wi-Fi network, or you just like flying under the radar, using a VPN (virtual private network) is one way to make that happen.

If the term “never leave home without it” applied to any one material item or product, it would have to be the smartphone. Some estimates suggest the average user looks at their smartphone screen as many as 1,500 times per week. Travelling without a handset in tow seems to be getting increasingly difficult, simply because of everything it can do. From taking photos at some exotic locale, uploading them to Instagram and messaging friends and family back home, the smartphone is a versatile tool anywhere and everywhere.

The code of conduct the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) set down for the wireless industry ensures that consumers can cancel their three-year contracts after 24 months without paying a fee, meaning that as of June 3, three-year cell phone contracts are effectively dead. If you signed a contract on June 2, 2013 or earlier, then you are free to renew or go without a contract. You have options to consider now that you’re on your own to decide, and here’s a look at some of them.