Smartphones & Accessories

Motorola is back and so is the Moto X, this time with the ‘Play’ moniker as a play on the phone’s longevity. The mid-range smartphone is Motorola’s newest flagship in Canada, packing in a huge battery into a frame that sports a larger display than last year’s model. A new camera has also been added to address the limitations of the prior Moto X handsets, pitting this device in a unique place that aims to capture the attention of consumers looking for a dependable smartphone that does everything.

Chances are, your smartphone is your go-to point-and-shoot camera. Whether it’s a slice of life or a slice of food, the compunction to capture those moments means that more people are taking more photos than ever before. The level of sharing on social media only drives things further. Not all smartphone cameras are created equal, yet there are some basics to snapping better images that will not only improve image quality, but also make you a better mobile photographer.

The kids’ backpacks are packed, their lunches are planned, and you’ve argued out who’s going to be taking the kids to their first day back … but there’s always something that gets forgotten.   I have a cousin who had a tendency to leave his toothbrushes and shoes (how???!) behind when he was a kid, like a travelling Hansel & Gretel, but in August, it’s way more likely that you’ve forgotten something far less dire. Like, say, to update the kids’ (and your own!) phone and tablet cases for back-to-school.

    As student’s lives get exponentially busier during back-to-school,good productivity apps for organizing and managing tasks and to-do’s becomes a necessity.   Here are some apps that do the job well.

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.