Posts by Taylor Martin
Based out of Charlotte, NC, Taylor Martin started writing about technology in 2009 while working in wireless retail. He has used BlackBerry off and on for over seven years, Android for nearly four years, iOS for three years, and has experimented with both webOS and Windows Phone. Taylor has reviewed countless smartphones and tablets, and doesn't go anywhere without a couple gadgets in his pockets or "nerd bag." In his free time, Taylor enjoys playing disc golf with friends, rock climbing, and playing video games. He also enjoys the occasional hockey game, and would do unspeakable things for some salmon nigiri.
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by Taylor Martin | June 13, 2013 6:05 PMWhen Anton didn't immediately scowl at the thought of using an 8-inch tablet as a phone replacement, I called him crazy. I literally thought he'd lost it. The point of a cell phone – for portable communication – is completely negated by substituting it with a device that doesn't fit in your pocket. And when he got the Fonepad by ASUS, actually liked it and didn't change his mind like I thought he would, and scored it as an impressive (for a tablet) eight out of 10 in the review, I was fully convinced Tony had gone off the deep end. Exactly one week ago, I received an email from ...
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by Taylor Martin | June 13, 2013 4:28 PMWhile the Galaxy Mega 6.3 and HTC One have very little in common, both are symbolic of their respective makers' current financial status and recent market performance. HTC is currently struggling and put every ounce of effort and know-how into a single smartphone. And the Galaxy Mega 6.3 is only one of many Samsung smartphones that have few realistic reasons to exist other than the fact that Samsung can afford to experiment to see what sticks. The Galaxy Mega 6.3 towers over pretty much every other smartphone on the market. And the HTC One packs one serious wallop with BoomSound, ...
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by Taylor Martin | June 12, 2013 9:40 AMSmartphones can't possibly get any bigger, can they? We all asked ourselves this after Samsung introduced the original Galaxy Note. Then came the Galaxy Note II, 0.2-inches larger than the original. And Huawei presented the 6.1-inch Ascend Mate to the world at CES in January. Again, we thought there is no way phones are getting any larger. Well, Samsung has done it again. The Galaxy Mega 6.3 is a gigantic phone. It towers over the Galaxy Note II, what was – and still is, for that matter – considered too large by many. But we would be doing you guys and gals a disservice if we didn't ...
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by Taylor Martin | June 11, 2013 11:32 AMSamsung announced its newest line of smartphones (made for giants) back in April: Galaxy Mega. If the name isn't indication enough, maybe the screen sizes of these phones will get your phablet flags waving, as Mr. Fisher would say. The Mega comes in two sizes – 5.8 and 6.3-inches. Huge, at least for being marketed as a simply a phone, is an understatement. Where the Galaxy Note 8.0 (non-US model) and Fonepad are small tablets with phone capabilities, the Galaxy Mega 6.3 is nothing more than a giant phone. We received one yesterday morning and, as always, gave it the unboxing treatment. ...
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by Taylor Martin | June 10, 2013 8:44 PMNow that it's all said and done, we know iOS 7 is pretty light on new features. Siri has a few new parlor tricks; Control Center now allows users to quickly toggle settings without navigating to the Settings app; Notification Center sports a less cluttered, more useful interface; multitasking is smart and learns which apps you use most; and Safari handles tabs better than ever. And, yes, we have a few complaints about the update – like how it's still closed down and, despite the giant app ecosystem, doesn't allow third-party sharing or user-defined default apps. Feature-light or not, ...
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by Taylor Martin | June 10, 2013 6:03 PMToday is the day every iOS fanatic has been awaiting for years. From the time iOS was first announced to the last major update, iOS 6, the operating system has looked mostly the same. Apple added features along the way but, for the most part, it has always been the same iOS. For the last six years, the interface has remained mostly unchanged. And few viewed that as a serious problem. The vocal minority and us tech writers have griped about it for years, about how stale iOS has become as new and existing operating systems have been graced with new looks and groundbreaking features. But the ...
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by Taylor Martin | June 7, 2013 6:52 PMWhen you think of Google Android apps, you generally think of the applications that come pre-packaged on practically every Android device – Gmail, Hangouts (previously Talk), Calendar, Google+, Maps, and the Play media suite. Of course, there are also applications that don't come pre-installed, but pretty much everyone already knows about, such as Drive, Goggles, Keep, etc. But if you dig just beneath the surface, there are several Google-made applications that don't get nearly as much notoriety. Just take a peek at Google's developer page in Google Play. There are dozens of ...
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by Taylor Martin | June 6, 2013 5:44 PMThe Nexus 4 is the go-to device for many developers. Offering the purest Google experience and literally built for developers, it's the most vanilla Android experience possible. It's lightweight and comes with no bloatware. There's practically nothing to over-encumber the device straight out of the box. That said, the handset is beginning to age as faster, more efficient chipsets arrive. It just doesn't feel as fast as it once did. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to spruce up your ol' Nexus by way of various custom mods. Try a new ROM, or theme it to no end. Or, take a custom ...
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by Taylor Martin | June 5, 2013 6:19 PMMost new-device launches go the same way: usually the press gets review units before they’re widely available, and we get to use them for a few days -or a week if we’re lucky- as we work on our review. Then press day arrives. The embargo on media coverage lifts, and everyone posts their reviews and videos at the same time. It’s a huge frenzy, commenters go nuts, and it’s a giant explosion of frantic opinion-sharing activity. For about … a day. And then it all goes away. Sure, there’s followup coverage as people find bugs and hidden features, but after that initial blast, not ...
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by Taylor Martin | June 5, 2013 4:20 PMInterface design on mobile platforms has undergone some massive improvements and countless changes since the beginning of smartphones. Mobile operating systems in the BlackBerry era were heavily engineered and barely had the warm touch of a designer well-versed in user experience, if at all. It had a hint of an "Oh, that looks good … let's use that!" feel. Icons weren't a uniform size, nor did they have any sort of theme. The BlackBerry Settings app was nothing but a stark, bare text list of settings that stretched several pages deep. To say it was convoluted is putting it lightly. In ...
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by Taylor Martin | June 4, 2013 7:00 AMVideo conferencing and even personal video calling has been around for quite some time. And although Apple may have put popularized it in mobile, it hardly invented the first video calling mobile app. In fact, there were a bevy of video calling applications available long before FaceTime came to be. Alas, Apple managed to create a proprietary video calling platform that's only available to its own customers. And if you're using something other than an iPad, iPhone, iPod or Mac, no matter how many times your mother asks you to FaceTime her, it's not going to happen. You simply cannot ...
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by Taylor Martin | June 3, 2013 11:48 AMWhen Verizon launched the HTC ThunderBolt, I was first in line at my local corporate store. Okay, I may have been the only person in line. And I was the only customer the representatives didn't want to help. I wasn't there to upgrade a line, just to purchase new hardware at retail value. After some convincing, I walked out less roughly $670 and one of the first consumers in the nation to put Verizon's brand new LTE network to the test. My mind was immediately blown at how fast the speeds were. I had been used to only 3G speeds on Verizon, where speed tests would max out around 3Mbps down ...
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by Taylor Martin | May 31, 2013 7:19 PMIf I were prone to beating dead horses, I'm sure I could hammer out a handful of wordy editorials about how iOS is boring, dated, and in dire need of a face-lift. But I don't like beating anything, especially not something as futile and helpless as a horse that's already dead. Let's look at the situation from another perspective for a minute, shall we? It's no secret. The interface has grown very long in the tooth and reeks of UI design of years past. In regards to iOS, there's little to get excited over anymore. That's evidenced by the fact that despite nearing one million applications in ...
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by Taylor Martin | May 31, 2013 2:08 PMI got my start in the tech industry with BlackBerry. I was a fiend. I've owned dozens of different models, and I knew my way around the software like the back of my hand. I made my own themes in my free time, and was constantly flashing unofficial software and on the prowl for new apps and games. Above all, when BlackBerry failed to innovate and change direction with the rest of the smartphone market, there was one feature that I found unbelievably difficult to give up: the physical keyboards. BlackBerry was – and still is, for that matter – renowned for its second-to-none keyboards. ...
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by Taylor Martin | May 30, 2013 6:24 PMPocketnow Insider is a relatively new series of posts and videos that give you guys and gals, our loyal readers, a peek into our lives, what makes the wheels keep turning at Pocketnow, and what goes on behind the scenes. Since I started here at Pocketnow in February (oh, how the time has flown by!), readers, new Twitter followers, YouTubers, and Google+ followers have continually asked for me to do a bit about what's on my phone. And since this past weekend, the demand has exploded, following a new, clean, fresh setup I made on my Nexus 4. Without further ado, let's get to it! ...