That’s why Sonar, one of the few apps in the category that has been around for a few years, is trying something new. Up until now, Sonar has acted much like its name would suggest: Walk into a room, and using publicly available data pulled in from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, the app tells you who’s nearby, and what you may have in common with one another.

Sonar’s new tack, then, is honing in on relevance. The company launched an update to its app on Wednesday, focused on putting users in touch with others nearby that they want to see. Setting the new Sonar Status feature, for instance, is like sending a tweet out to your nearby connections, but no further. So if you’re, say, sending status updates about how awful the beer lines are at a music festival, that status will actually show up for others in your proximity — you know, the people who would actually care about that status update — but no further.

To boot, the company is also flipping on the ambient location switch, adding features that aren’t terribly different from recent competitors like Highlight, Banjo and Glancee. Essentially, the app will run in the background, sharing your location and status with those nearby without having to open the application.

Sonar insists, however, that its app will only send you push notifications if you’re near someone you actually know — in other words, a Facebook friend, or someone you follow on Twitter — instead of people you should know, a la Highlight or Banjo. And if you want to chat with someone nearby without broadcasting it to the world via Twitter, Sonar now lets users send private messages.

It’s an attempt to tackle a glaring issue in the social discovery space: How do we connect with relevant people, especially when relevance changes on a contextual basis? While I may not want to talk with someone I don’t know at a coffee shop, it may prove helpful to connect with other, less familiar people in your extended network when you’re both at a tech conference.

The great unknown at this point is Facebook, the behemoth that has its sights set on improving its mobile experience. Facebook just recently acquired Glancee, one of the competing apps in the social discovery space. It’s anyone’s guess as to how — or when — Facebook will use the technology.

Thanks to Amazon.com, you can now preorder it on the e-commerce site for $799.99.

For those unfamiliar with the hotly anticipated phone, here are some of the details: It’s got a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED screen, runs Android’s 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, has an eight-megapixel rear-facing camera as well as a front camera, and a quad-core 1.4 GHz processor. It also has “S Voice,” clearly inspired by iPhone’s Siri app, allowing a user to control certain functions on the phone using his or her voice. The phone is available in white and “pebble blue.”

But even if it’s a great phone — and even if Amazon’s Prime shipping applies — we have to say, that’s a pretty steep price to get a phone in advance of its release through carriers.

And, as the Amazon listing notes, the unlocked phone — which means its not tied to a wireless network — is “compatible with 2G GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and/or 3G UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA 850/900/1900/2100 wireless networks.”

What does all that gibberish mean? Basically that compatibility with certain wireless networks will be an issue. The Samsung Galaxy S III being sold through Amazon is a GSM phone, which means it won’t work on Verizon or Sprint’s networks. It’s not fully supported by T-Mobile, and while it will work with AT&T’s HSPA+ network, this device won’t work with LTE or 4G networks. (Even the Amazon listing encourages buyers to check with their network providers before purchasing.)

If you don’t mind being tethered to a carrier and would rather have a 4G/LTE-ready version of the phone at a much cheaper price, you’ll probably want to wait out the month, as the phone is expected to come to the U.S. sometime this summer. And at least you’ll know that it will work with your wireless network.

The bust-a-gut-funny storyteller Mike Birbiglia let his imagination run wild, and got Gross to play along. He made the short film below for the 2012 “This American Life” live show, which was broadcast to some 500 movie theaters full of public radio fans on Thursday night (including the one I visited in lovely and foggy San Bruno, Calif.).

Another segment of the live show — which was themed around performances that wouldn’t work on the radio — was a special audience smartphone participation number by OK Go.

The band, which is famous for its creative music video concepts, created an app that split the audience into different tones of chimes. Then we provided accompaniment by pressing buttons within the app while OK Go played a couple of songs and projected a scrolling color-coded score, like in Guitar Hero or Dance Dance Revolution.

Getting permission to allow people to use their cellphones in theaters was no easy task, and required multiple personal pleas to CEOs, said “This American Life” host Ira Glass, when he introduced the band.

While I had my phone turned on, I snapped the picture below:

Earlier today, Demand Media turned a Q1 performance that beat expectations and also raised its outlook for the year ahead.

Revenue was $82.9 million, up 9 percent, compared to an estimate of $79.6 million. Earnings per share, adjusted for one-time costs, were seven cents, above the expected five cents.

You can read it all here in these lovely Demand slides:

Demand_Media_Q1 Supplemental Data FINAL

Not bad, given many investors have been down on Demand, for a variety of reasons, mostly centered on traffic pressure due to search algorithm changes on the all-important Google. The low stock price resulted in a deal, in which Demand recently almost went private.

So what does CEO Richard Rosenblatt have to say for himself about all this? Here’s a liveblog of the conference call with Wall Street analysts, taking place at 2 pm PT.

Earlier:

2:05 pm: The call started a little late, but Rosenblatt was quick at it, noting the news was a lot better than was thought.

Always a jaunty dude, he was jauntier than usual, if possible, throwing in a lot of terms like “growth,” “momentum” and “Those fiddling geeks from Google did not kill us, after all!” Okay, not the last one.

It was a strong performance, indeed, which is a cause for happiness, I suppose, and especially since Demand’s stock has been in the doldrums since it went public earlier this year.

Not Groupon bad, but that’s a moon crater.

“It was a strong performance,” said Rosenblatt. He gets to say that.

More on the specifics, which showed growth in pages views, engagement and such things on its flagship sites, such as Cracked and LiveStrong. Its juggernaut, eHow, is still recovering from the Google search changes, in an effort deceptively called Panda.

This was not a cuddly panda, but Panda Gone Wild.

2:18 pm: The CFO guy who just repeats the numbers in the press release. (This is the part where I go to the bathroom.)

2:28 pm: Back! Sorry I took so long, but I was getting a computer science degree. (You knew that Yahoo joke was coming!)

The CFO is still chitchatting, still positive about the year ahead and saying “growth” a lot.

2:30 pm: Time for Q&A!

The first is about the mobile arena and monetization there.

Important, but no one is anywhere on this, due to the fact that it does not monetize very well at this point in time.

Everyone has a smartphone now, but the advertising part of it is still a wee baby.

“The monetization will come later,” said Rosenblatt, pointing out the obvious, although he did note that Demand was focusing in it.

Whee! Get on it, Chief of Revenue Joanne Bradford (I know you work hard, but work harder)!

Now to video. More monetizable, obviously, and Demand has a lot of videos to offer, being one of the bigger content providers to YouTube.

I am now officially tired of this question. Next!

2:35 pm: Ooh, a future and direction question about eHow.

“How should we think about its utility in the world?,” asks the analyst.

You should think about it as a place to learn to boil an egg, which is what Rosenblatt mentions. Who doesn’t want to know how to boil an egg? And who doesn’t forget how long to do it, resulting in rubber balls or drippy messes?

These are the great queries of our day, people!

The next question is about “bullish” YouTube upfront last week, in which Google pretended to go Hollywood.

Google will never go Hollywood, by the way, since it requires charm and glamour.

Demand was not there, but it is all up on the YouTube channel thing.

And, why not, since Google is giving away dough to become Hollywood. (Not … gonna … happen … ever, but take the money, all you celebs!)

2:40 pm: Next question is about mobile, again. Quantify that, and when is it going to be big?

No one can say yet, but why not ask!

Still, Rosenblatt makes a college try (I wonder if he has a CS degree?), noting it is “happening fast.”

Another question on YouTube channels and then on registar business.

Rosenblatt and Google are apparently going to see if they can make a go of this thing! Like kids putting on a show in the barn! Let’s see if we can make something of this dang talented group of kids!

The questions never end. Wait, the analyst asks about All Things Digital and my story on their private equity deal!

I can check another one off my bucket list: Being mentioned on a Demand Media earnings call!

Rosenblatt cannot say much, but notes, “We have a duty as a public company to look at anything that comes across.”

Which means it’s true, though he might have taken a moment to compliment my scooptastic skills.

Sigh.

2:51 pm: I am bereft by the slight, but shall recover.

And now it is over, so it is back to boiling my egg.

A new Pew survey of more than 2,200 U.S. adults shows that 70 percent of all cellphone owners and 86 percent of smartphone owners say they’ve used their phones in the past 30 days to access immediate information, solve a problem or get help in an emergency.

The fact that cellphones and smartphones are being used as need-it-now devices really isn’t that surprising, since they put the world’s trove of information in our pockets. What’s more interesting is how those situations are categorized — something the mobile ad industry might want to pay heed to.

The majority of those surveyed — 41 percent — say they’ve used their phones for the basic task of coordinating meetings or get-togethers.

That outweighs the number of people who say they’ve used their phones to look up a restaurant (30 percent), check sports scores (23 percent) and get transit information (20 percent).

Less than one-fifth of those surveyed said they’ve used their phone in an emergency situation in the past 30 days, which is probably a good thing.

Another interesting tidbit: Despite the fact that slightly more women than men now own smartphones, as my AllThingsD colleague Ina Fried reports, men who own mobile phones are more likely than women to look up information during an argument. Some 31 percent of men admit to doing this, compared with 22 percent of women.

Could this be because women are less likely to experience memory loss? Just saying …

(Image courtesy of Flickr/Brenderous)

The device will then head to Asia and beyond; no U.S. plans have been announced.

The L7 is at the upper end of a midrange line that LG is hoping will help the company regain some lost ground in the market.

“For consumers desiring high-end style and sophistication in a smartphone, LG Optimus L7 offers beauty and performance in one smart package,” LG mobile unit CEO Jong-seok Park said in a statement. “The L7 is a significant addition to our L-Series portfolio and we are confident that it’ll prove highly attractive to users. We expect it to be one of our most popular smartphones.”

A new version of Swivl, called Swivl-it, will cost $129 — down from $179 — and will come with fewer bells and whistles. Swivl-it will still automatically move from side to side, as the original device does, but it will require manual vertical tilting. Also, the little remote that comes with the new Swivl won’t act as a microphone, though the accessory is upgradeable for $49 if you’d prefer that it work as a mic.

I first reviewed Swivl for AllThingsD back in March, and while I thought it was a cool device that video bloggers and non-techies alike would appreciate, I wrote at the time that $179 was a lot to pay for a moving iPhone stand.

The dock physically supports other devices, such as an Android smartphone, a slim digital camera and even the ol’ Flip camera, but the compatible Swivl mobile app only works with iPhone, which means other smartphone users couldn’t use the microphone-equipped Swivl remote to record their voices directly to the app.

The microphone is a nifty accessory, but Swivl maker Satarii is hoping a more basic version will turn the heads of non-iPhone users.

It’s a good time for a price cut, too, since other products like this Kickstarter project perform many of the same functions as the Swivl, and for a few dollars less, too.

New data from Juniper Research shows that Apple’s revenue from the iPhone in the first quarter topped out at about $22.7 billion — a fair bit more than the $17 billion Samsung made from its entire handset portfolio, smart and feature. So while Samsung may be winning on global smartphone shipments, Apple is winning on a more important metric: Smartphone profitability. And for a very simple reason: The company has the highest margins around.

Reporting second-quarter earnings last week, Apple said that its gross margin was 47.4 percent. Meanwhile, Samsung’s was just under 13 percent. So, while Samsung is dominating smartphone shipments, Apple is dominating the smartphone industry’s pool of profits.

It’s not a sustainable diet, but that’s what was available at the relatively few shops around San Francisco and New York City that are accepting Pay with Square and PayPal’s mobile app.

In case you’ve missed it, there’s a battle brewing over the future of mobile payments — that is, the ability for consumers to ditch the leather wallet and purchase things with their mobile phones. Companies like Google, PayPal, Square, wireless providers and credit card companies are debating various forms of mobile payment technology.

But in the battle over who gets to control your digital wallet, it’s important not to forget the consumer experience. Is it really that much easier to pay with a mobile phone than it is to just pull out cash or a credit card?

That’s what I set out to find this week, mainly using Pay with Square.

Square is a company known for creating a device for small businesses that plugs into an iPhone and can read a swiped credit card, but the company recently renamed and relaunched its app for consumers. Now called Pay with Square, the app works only at stores that are using Square’s register system for the iPad. Currently, around 75,000 merchants across the U.S. are accepting payments via the Pay with Square app.

In my experience, Pay with Square proved to be an easy, enjoyable app to use to purchase things using my smartphone — though it won’t be an everyday app for me until there are more businesses accepting it.

The free Pay with Square app works with iPhone and Android phones. It used to have a wallet-like interface, but now it simply lists nearby merchants, and has a rotation of featured businesses at the top of the page.

I first used Pay with Square at a coffee shop in San Francisco. I had to link the app to my credit card account, and then upload a picture of myself; otherwise, I wouldn’t be allowed to pay. Square says this provides a layer of security on top of other standard security measures it puts in place, alongside the security your credit card company provides.

Of course, a customer could upload a picture of their cat or something, and use that as their Pay with Square image. It’s up to the merchant to decide whether it’s a good idea to accept payment from someone whose photo doesn’t align with what they look like.

Then, on the coffee shop’s page within the app, there was the option to auto-open a tab for payments. Once I indicated in the app that I wanted to open a tab, my name and photo appeared a few moments later on the cashier’s iPad register, and the cashier was able to tap on my name and charge me.

Square has been touting the idea that this app actually allows for “hands-free” payments, which means a user shouldn’t even have to take her smartphone out of her pocket in order to pay, provided that the auto-open tab is turned on. I had mixed experiences with this at shops in New York.

One shop I bought coffee at didn’t see my name right away, even though I had turned on the tab in the iPhone version of the app. I tried to buy another item using the app on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus Android phone, and my name didn’t appear at all on the list of customers in the store.

But at another downtown coffee shop I was able to walk in, place my order and say, “Charge it to Lauren Goode” — without taking my phone out of my pocket — and the transaction was completed in seconds. This worked well on both iPhone and Android.

The app has a new tilt-to-map feature that I like a lot. Tilting your smartphone at an angle turns the screen into a full map, with little red pins showing where Square-friendly merchants are. I could also tweet from within the app that I was at a shop and paying with Square, text-message the same notification, and email the store’s link to a friend.

One part of the app that I found lacking was the amount of information that some merchants list on their pages within the app. Some show addresses, phone numbers, business hours and full menus. But a couple of Square-friendly venues in the app only listed their business phone numbers or addresses, so I had to exit the app to run an additional search and find out what the business actually sold.

This past March, online payments giant PayPal introduced PayPal Here, a Square-like dongle for small businesses to accept credit card payments on a mobile phone; PayPal also has a mobile app that uses location services to recognize where a customer is. PayPal already has the advantage of a massive user base of over a hundred million and, unlike Square, it is available in international markets.

But PayPal’s triangle device for payments still hasn’t been fully rolled out yet, so locating businesses where I could test that in conjunction with the PayPal app was challenging. The company says it’s still in “beta,” so it’s unclear how many merchants are actually using the triangle.

So that’s how I found myself buying beef jerky from a merchant amid a row of warehouses in Brooklyn on a rainy day. The founder of Kings County Jerky used to use Square, but he is now using the PayPal triangle.

Once I arrived, I opened the PayPal application on my iPhone. It recognized my location and listed a couple places nearby that would take my money via my PayPal app.

Since data service on my phone happened to be particularly bad in that area, I initially had trouble dropping the digital pin within the app that’s supposed to let the merchant know I was there. The merchant also had to reboot his phone once to process the payment on his end.

But once I switched over to Wi-Fi, I had four options for paying him: Pay directly from my PayPal account through the app; handing him my credit card, which he would swipe through the PayPal triangle; and scanning my credit card. The last resort would be for the merchant to manually enter my credit card number into his phone, though he would get charged a slightly higher fee for processing my payment that way.

Mobile connection issues aside, paying through my PayPal account on the app was relatively quick and painless.

In terms of loyalty rewards and discounts, mobile payment companies are trying to make paying with a smartphone compelling, but I haven’t been using the apps long enough to glean the rewards. Square, for example, gives merchants the ability to offer purchasers 10 percent off transactions just for being repeat customers, and while Google Wallet is currently only available on five Android smartphone models, the company has partnered with name-brand retailers to offer small promotions to app users.

Paying with Square was an easy way to pay with my mobile phone and, for me, the current lack of merchants accepting it was its biggest downside. This category of technology is too young here in the U.S. to see what the real benefits — and drawbacks — will be, but consumers can likely expect to see more options to pay with their smartphones in the near future.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120430/paying-with-squares-new-mobile-payments-app/feed/ 5 http://allthingsd.com/20120429/mission-impossibly-funny-siri-will-self-destruct-in-five-seconds-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20120429/mission-impossibly-funny-siri-will-self-destruct-in-five-seconds-video/#comments Sun, 29 Apr 2012 07:38:50 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=201024

Here is a very clever video which imagines a new feature on iPhone 5 — the Siri voice command cracks the device if you key in the wrong password three times in a row, after doing a quick data transfer to your iTunes account.

Somehow, I don’t think this going to be in the next version of the Apple smartphone, but it’s certainly innovative, in a twisted way.

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120429/mission-impossibly-funny-siri-will-self-destruct-in-five-seconds-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120427/samsung-passes-nokia-to-become-worlds-no-1-phone-maker/ http://allthingsd.com/20120427/samsung-passes-nokia-to-become-worlds-no-1-phone-maker/#comments Fri, 27 Apr 2012 11:00:44 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=200583 A continued drop in sales at Nokia allowed Samsung to grab the title of world’s No.1 seller of cellphones.

Nokia sold 83 million units, while Samsung sold 92 million phones, according to IHS iSuppli. That’s a reversal from last year’s fourth quarter, where Nokia shipped 113.5 million units, while Samsung shipped 97.6 million.

On the smartphone side, Apple retained its top spot, shipping 35 million iPhones, followed by Samsung, which sold 32 million smartphones.

“With cellphones now accounting for more than 40 percent of Samsung’s overall revenue, it’s clear that the company’s continued investments in smartphone hardware and software R&D are paying off,” IHS senior analyst Wayne Lam said in a statement.

“The company is not only cashing in on the market’s shift to smartphones, but is also succeeding in other cellphone product categories, allowing it to capture the overall market lead,” Lam said. “What makes Samsung’s performance even more impressive is that the company’s latest Galaxy S III handset has yet to be launched, with shipments set to start in May. This indicates Samsung is likely to make further progress in market share in 2012.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120427/samsung-passes-nokia-to-become-worlds-no-1-phone-maker/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120424/taking-dictation/ http://allthingsd.com/20120424/taking-dictation/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:47:31 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://allthingsd.com/?p=199728 Q:

Can I hook up my iPhone to my iMac and dictate into a word processor? Or should I just dictate into the Notes app on the iPhone and send that by email? I am executor of my mom’s estate and she left a lot of written memories that I want to compile into a book for family members. It would be a lot easier to dictate than to type them all.

A:

As far as I know, the iPhone can’t be used as a dictation appendage for a computer. You’d have to dictate into a document on the phone and transfer that to the computer. But you don’t have to use Apple’s Notes app.

There are many apps on iPhone and Android that can produce documents in Microsoft Word format which, when transferred to a PC or Mac, can be opened right in Word. Examples are Quickoffice, Documents To Go, and Apple’s own Pages. You can use dictation with all of these.

Q:

Enjoyed your article on using smartphones to turn dictation into text. I have recently become interested in various inexpensive devices that can record professors’ lectures into text. Do you think that the iPhone or Android phones can do that from a long distance, say, in back of the class?

A:

Anything is possible, but it’s not what the dictation features are designed to do, and I didn’t test that scenario. I doubt it would be very reliable or accurate.

The microphones on smartphones are typically designed to focus on a single voice close to the phone and to ignore the details of more distant sounds. It might work in a small, quiet seminar room with a professor whose voice is loud and clear, but I’m skeptical it would work in the back row of a large hall.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120424/taking-dictation/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120423/all-things-hired-bonnie-cha-is-our-latest-atd-reviewer/ http://allthingsd.com/20120423/all-things-hired-bonnie-cha-is-our-latest-atd-reviewer/#comments Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:01:10 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=197637

On the heels of our recent hiring of Mike Isaac to cover social tech for this site, Bonnie Cha will be joining the staff of All Things Digital as a senior reviewer.

She joins Walt Mossberg and Katie Boehret, as well as recent hire Lauren Goode, as part of our expanded All Things Reviewed site.

Cha has been covering technology since 2002, most recently spending eight years at CNET reviewing various consumer electronics, including printers, software and smartphones, as well as reporting on the wireless industry.

She also wrote for the Crave blog there, covering such topics as robotics and science, and served as a technical editor on several how-to books for McGraw-Hill.

When not tinkering with the latest gadgets, Cha enjoys spending her free time surfing or checking out live music. She is a graduate of Emory University with a degree in English and of the University of Southern California, where she got her masters in journalism.

Most of all, we think she’s a perfect fit for our ever-growing staff, so get ready for some insightful reviews and more when she starts in May.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120423/all-things-hired-bonnie-cha-is-our-latest-atd-reviewer/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120419/verizon-half-of-our-first-quarter-smartphone-sales-were-iphones/ http://allthingsd.com/20120419/verizon-half-of-our-first-quarter-smartphone-sales-were-iphones/#comments Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:42:03 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=198126 Apple’s iPhone continues to sell well at Verizon, though not quite as well as last quarter. Reporting first-quarter earnings largely in line with expectations this morning, Verizon said it sold 6.3 million smartphones.

Of those, 3.2 million were iPhones.

Now, that’s significantly less than the 4.3 million the carrier sold last quarter.

But remember: Last quarter saw record-setting iPhone sales of 37 million for Apple, driven by the launch of the iPhone 4S. So, while sales have certainly slowed, they’re impressive nonetheless.

After all, they represent more than half of Verizon’s smartphone business. And consider this: Verzion sold just 2.1 million 4G LTE-enabled smartphones during the same period — a million less than the iPhone, which is still 3G.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120419/verizon-half-of-our-first-quarter-smartphone-sales-were-iphones/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120417/that-intel-phone-coming-this-week-its-for-indias-lava/ http://allthingsd.com/20120417/that-intel-phone-coming-this-week-its-for-indias-lava/#comments Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:17:22 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=197542 Intel said on Tuesday’s earnings call that the first smartphone running its chips will launch this week, but it didn’t identify the customer by name.

However, some deductive reasoning suggests that it will be Lava, a little-known Indian company that Intel announced in February as one of its early customers.

Lenovo and France Telecom’s Orange also plan devices this quarter, but both of those companies have announced dates for later in the quarter. Lenovo’s first Intel phone is coming in May, while Orange’s is expected in June.

Intel is hoping to make a dent in a market that until now has been dominated by the likes of Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and Nvidia.

“We have ambitions to not be a minor player here,” CEO Paul Otellini said back in February.

Part of Intel’s strategy has been to create a near-complete reference design that aspiring players — like Lava — can use to quickly get into the smartphone game.

Intel also announced a longer-term partnership with Motorola Mobility, though it has yet to convince most big-name phone makers to adopt its chips.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120417/that-intel-phone-coming-this-week-its-for-indias-lava/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120416/samsung-to-announce-next-galaxy-at-london-event-on-may-3/ http://allthingsd.com/20120416/samsung-to-announce-next-galaxy-at-london-event-on-may-3/#comments Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:22:18 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=196644 Aiming to capitalize on its Olympic partnership, Samsung plans to launch the next version of its flagship Galaxy line of Android products at a May 3 event in London.

An invitation being sent to journalists offers few details on the product.

“Come and meet the next Galaxy,” reads the invite, which confirms the time and place of the launch.

Samsung has also been holding back a bit this year. Unlike in past years, Samsung didn’t have a big event at Mobile World Congress in February.

Instead, it said it would launch the successor to its Galaxy S II at an event later in the first half of the year.

Samsung marketing executive Younghee Lee had told AllThingsD in January that the company planned to use its Olympic partnership for a major product launch. Samsung is a global sponsor for the London games, as it was for the Vancouver Olympics.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120416/samsung-to-announce-next-galaxy-at-london-event-on-may-3/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120412/boeing-planning-secure-android-device-for-u-s-government/ http://allthingsd.com/20120412/boeing-planning-secure-android-device-for-u-s-government/#comments Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:39:19 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=195877 Aerospace company Boeing has an Android device coming up, but it’s aimed at providing secure communications for the government rather than taking on the Galaxy Nexus. A representative confirmed to GeekWire that the device is in the works, but declined to offer details.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120412/boeing-planning-secure-android-device-for-u-s-government/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120410/take-a-note-typing-with-no-hands/ http://allthingsd.com/20120410/take-a-note-typing-with-no-hands/#comments Wed, 11 Apr 2012 01:08:24 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://allthingsd.com/?p=195119 I am writing this paragraph on an iPhone. But I am not typing it on the phone’s virtual keyboard. I am dictating it using a little-known feature that allows you to employ your voice instead of your fingers, wherever text entry is possible on the device.

And now, for this paragraph, I have switched to an Android phone. Once again, I am composing these words using only my voice, and not typing them on the virtual keyboard.

Those two paragraphs, dictated as emails and then cut and pasted into this column on a computer, required far fewer corrections than you might think, given the bad reputation for accuracy that voice input on digital devices has acquired. I only had to add a comma I’d forgotten to specify in the first paragraph and capitalize the word “Android” in the second paragraph.

For me, a daily user of virtual keyboards, the process was quicker and more accurate than typing would likely have been, even for the relatively short blocks of text typically composed on phones.

So, on the suspicion that dictation on smartphones might prove useful for others as well, I’ve been testing it heavily over the past week. I used a top phone with Google’s Android software, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and an Apple iPhone 4S. In general, I found that, while dictation could occasionally fail badly, it worked surprisingly well in a wide variety of environments and applications.

On both leading smartphone platforms, I found that relatively short dictation—such as emails, texts, tweets, Facebook posts and notes—was at least as accurate, and often more, as typing on a glass screen. It was better in quiet environments, but did OK even in most noisy places like grocery stores, coffee shops and carwashes. It was also faster, since, as long as you don’t have to correct numerous errors, speaking is usually faster than typing on glass.

For this review, I am not mainly referring to Siri, the widely publicized, voice-controlled feature on the new iPhones, which can do things like tell you the weather, or stock prices. Nor am I discussing the “voice actions” on Android, which can perform Web searches and other tasks. Both can also help with some text dictation. I concentrated on a much simpler feature of both platforms: a small microphone key that’s included right in the phones’ on-screen keyboards.

Apple’s dictation system did better at capitalizing proper names.

Android phones have had this microphone key for a couple of years, and Apple added it to the latest iPhone, the 4S, last fall, and to the new iPad, when it came out last month. But I’m guessing that many users of these phones either haven’t used this special key, or haven’t even noticed it.

While the microphone keys work a bit differently on the two platforms, they are basically similar. When the keyboard appears, ready for you to type, you can instead hit the microphone key and simply dictate what you want to say. The phones then send your spoken words to a remote server, which rapidly translates them into text and sends them back to the phone’s screen. If corrections are needed, you make them by typing, though both platforms make this easier by indicating the likeliest errors, and suggesting alternatives.

A couple of caveats are in order. I didn’t compare dictation to typing on a phone with physical keys, whose devotees are often speedy and accurate. Instead, I thought the apt comparison was with a virtual keyboard, which is becoming the norm on phones, but is still a source of frustration for many users.

But Android was more reliable.

I also didn’t try dictating a long document, like this column, because phones are rarely used for lengthy composing.

I found that both platforms’ dictation systems worked well enough for me to recommend them. In case after case, both phones got it right, or close enough to require little correcting.

But there are differences. Android has an advantage in that, in the newest version of its operating system, it displays the dictated text almost in real time, lagging just slightly behind your spoken words. On the iPhone, the system only reveals its rendering of your dictation after you’ve tapped on a “Done” button.

Android’s dictation system also supports many more languages than Apple’s—40 languages and dialects, including Spanish, Chinese, Arabic and Hebrew. On the iPhone, only English, French and German are currently supported, though Apple says Chinese, Korean, Italian, and Spanish will be added later this year.

However, I found the iPhone 4S worked better than the Galaxy Nexus in noisier environments. For instance, in a crowded shopping-mall food court, while neither phone was perfect, the iPhone understood me to say: “I am dictating this email from the very noisy Court at Montgomery Mall on the iPhone”—missing only the word “food” and capitalizing “Court.” The Android phone mangled a very similar sentence as: “I am dictating this email on droid phone from the bearing noise for it montgomery mall.”

Google notes that, unlike Apple, it supports many phones, and that the results might have differed on another model, with better noise cancellation. Apple says the iPhone 4S does have noise cancellation. And, in any case, the two phones’ results were more comparable in quieter settings.

Apple’s system also did better at capitalizing proper names, like Stradivarius, or Red Sox, or even Google (which my Android phone, ironically, always rendered in lowercase). But Google says it will be updating its dictation feature in weeks to better handle proper names.

On the other hand, I found that, when Android did err, it had a more extensive and easier to use manner for correcting those mistakes than the iPhone did. Android was also more reliable; sometimes the iPhone returned no text at all.

Still, I found these differences less important than the fact that, for me, the results on both platforms were impressive. On both, if you say words like “period” or “comma,” you generally get the punctuation mark (though both try to make the distinction when you actually want a word like “period.”)

And, in test after test, both did a good job. Errors were generally fewer than if I had typed the words quickly.

Both have a downside: Because they do the transcription on their servers, and they are anxious to improve, they do retain some information about what you’re saying. Both companies say they respect your privacy, but, if you worry about transmitting your messages or notes to Apple or Google, don’t use dictation.

Otherwise, especially for those who find typing on glass clumsy, the microphone key on Android and the new iPhone is something you might want to add to your arsenal of ways to use your phone.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120410/take-a-note-typing-with-no-hands/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120409/more-d10-speakers-ellison-meeker-myhrvold-along-with-pixar-and-visa/ http://allthingsd.com/20120409/more-d10-speakers-ellison-meeker-myhrvold-along-with-pixar-and-visa/#comments Mon, 09 Apr 2012 21:49:26 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=193639

A month ago, I posted an initial list of speakers for the 10th D: All Things Digital conference.

After a decade, the event — which is held in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., just south of Los Angeles, at the end of May — has attracted another amazing group of speakers, including: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; serial entrepreneur Sean Parker, who will appear with Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek; Zynga founder and CEO Mark Pincus; Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz; LinkedIn Chairman and VC Reid Hoffman, who will appear with the social business site’s CEO Jeff Weiner; and Skype CEO Tony Bates.

Now, here’s another group of stellar speakers we’ve added to the programming lineup (and there are still even more big names to come in the weeks ahead): Oracle CEO Larry Ellison; former tech analyst superstar and now VC Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins; Intellectual Ventures’ Nathan Myhrvold; Pixar co-founder and Disney animation head Dr. Ed Catmull; and Visa President John Partridge.

Larry Ellison, CEO and founder of the enterprise giant Oracle, needs little introduction, as one of tech’s highest profile figures and a true Silicon Valley icon. Frankly, I think the short bio that’s on Oracle’s Web site says it all: “Larry Ellison has been CEO of Oracle Corporation since he founded the company in 1977. He also races sailboats, flies planes, and plays tennis and guitar.” There will be a lot to talk about with the voluble and always entertaining exec — who appeared at the D conference once before many years ago — from the current state of the tech industry to insights to where it’s all going. (In addition, Ellison has agreed to appear on a panel we are doing as a tribute to his close friend, Apple’s former CEO Steve Jobs.)

Another well-known tech figure is Meeker, who is now a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, having joined the storied venture capital firm in early 2011. She focuses there on investments in its digital practice and via KP’s Digital Growth Fund, working with companies such as Spotify, Jawbone and One King’s Lane. But Meeker is perhaps best known for her long stint — 1991 to 2010 — as a star Internet research analyst at Morgan Stanley, where she brought many of the Internet’s great companies to the attention of Wall Street and beyond. She also wrote a series of groundbreaking reports on the landscape. That includes her annual “State of the Internet,” which Meeker will debut this year at the conference in an extended demo of her always riveting Internet trends presentation.

Nathan Myhrvold is also a tech legend, having worked for 14 years as chief strategist and CTO of Microsoft. But, instead of retiring, the avid inventor decided to focus on patents, founding and leading a controversial company called Intellectual Ventures, which buys them up and licenses them out (or sues if it doesn’t sell). With all the mishegas around patents right now, it’s a good time to have Myhrvold back to explain it all and perhaps to take some of the blame for the explosion in intellectual property lawsuits. (Myhrvold also co-authored a cookbook, “Modernist Cuisine,” so we hope we will also get some sort of futuristic cooking demo. Perhaps, Patently Delicious Flan?)

Speaking of tasty, the animation from Pixar over the years has been just that and it’s been one of Disney’s greatest acquisitions. Given how much Pixar has contributed to animation technology, we are glad to finally get Dr. Ed Catmull onstage. As co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios and president of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, he will discuss where entertainment and technology are intersecting and where they are not. Catmull is a geek’s geek in the industry — having also founded the computer graphics laboratory at the New York Institute of Technology, the computer division of Lucasfilm, as well as Pixar, which he did with chief creative officer John Lasseter. Get ready to talk about image compositing, motion blur, subdivision surfaces, cloth simulation and rendering techniques, texture mapping and the z-buffer. Also, Catmull’s five Academy Awards.

Lastly, it is perfect timing for bringing on John Partridge, president of Visa. With swirling issues around online identity theft, digital privacy, the future of money and the rise of upstart competitors such as Square, Partridge has his hands full at the credit card giant. One of the most neglected arenas in tech, the way we manage payments is perhaps the biggest story of the next era, especially as it relates to mobile and the rise of smartphones as all-purpose devices.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120409/more-d10-speakers-ellison-meeker-myhrvold-along-with-pixar-and-visa/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120409/facetagram-instabook-whatever-you-call-it-all-your-photo-are-belong-to-facebook-for-1-billion/ http://allthingsd.com/20120409/facetagram-instabook-whatever-you-call-it-all-your-photo-are-belong-to-facebook-for-1-billion/#comments Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:20:59 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=194502

If you want a quick analysis of why Facebook would pay $1 billion for popular photo-sharing service Instagram, please ignore the obvious financials that just don’t add up at all and have most of the typically unshockable digerati shocked by the sheer amount of the price.

Actually, it’s pretty simple: Photos. Photos. And, oh yes, mobile photos — lots and lots and lots of them.

Astonishingly, Facebook users already upload an average of more than 250 million images daily, making it the most popular photo-sharing service on the Web.

But it’s not the best by far and not the most mobile, which is Facebook’s biggest weakness — that has been accomplished many others, especially Instagram, the favorite of power users who scoffed at Facebook’s weak tools. (The horror of no filters!)

Now — instead of all those billions of juicy digital photos snapped by an ever-growing legion of smartphone users loading up to the beautifully designed Instagram mobile app and living on the servers of the small San Francisco-based start-up — Facebook has now captured all these memories for its massive social networking site.

And while $1 billion seems an awful lot to pay for that privilege — Twitter is quaking with “OMG!” and “Wow!” and “WTF!” tweets about the acquisition — this is apparently priceless for Facebook in a deal that went down quickly and quietly in recent weeks.

That and the fact that the huge sum prevented Instagram from being scooped up by Google.

It’s a clear signal from CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg — who rules all product efforts at the company — of his intent to dominate all innovations that have to do with owning the social experience.

Because while many Instagram photos quickly made their way onto Facebook — sharing on the service, as well as on Twitter, was a big part of the app’s offering — the future of the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company is tied to having control over key elements of the user experience.

Of all of those — communications, status updates, content linking — it has been photos that have become perhaps the most important part of Facebook, almost since its beginnings.

Photos are what allowed Facebook to grow so quickly and what made it more than just a blue sea of text and links to consumers. Its new Timeline depends on big, pretty photos, and Facebook even recently announced that it would allow full-screen viewing of high-resolution photos on its Web site, a pricey endeavor.

So, perhaps it was inevitable that Zuckerberg would pay up for Instagram, too — he knows a good entrepreneurial success when he sees one and apparently has the power to convince start-ups that he can make their bigger dreams come true.

Whether or not Instagram ever makes money is perhaps beside the point at this moment in time, as Facebook is poised to go public at 100 times the amount it forked over for Instagram.

But that it considers such a purchase worth as much as one percent of its expected valuation says a thousands words. And most of those words are “mobile” and “photo.”

As Ben Jacobs noted on Twitter: “Kodak goes bankrupt and Instagram is worth a billion dollars. 2012, y’all.”

Indeed. And, I have no doubt if Zuckerberg could figure out a way to shove all those Kodak moments from analog snapshots onto Facebook easily, he’d have paid up for that, too.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120409/facetagram-instabook-whatever-you-call-it-all-your-photo-are-belong-to-facebook-for-1-billion/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120409/will-we-see-an-amazon-smartphone-this-year/ http://allthingsd.com/20120409/will-we-see-an-amazon-smartphone-this-year/#comments Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:51:15 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=194393 Amazon’s plans to expand its digital device portfolio this year may extend well beyond just a larger Kindle Fire. Word around the company’s supply chain is that the retailer intends to release multiple new versions of the Fire, and perhaps a smartphone, as well.

Sources in Amazon’s component supply chain tell Topeka analyst Brian White that we could see the large-screen Kindle Fire that the company is believed to have in the pipeline make its debut sometime in June, and not by itself.

“Originally launched in 4Q11, the Kindle Fire is only available with a seven-inch screen and we believe a larger screen size version is coming this summer,” White says. “In fact, there could be two or possibly three versions of the Fire released with this launch and at least an eight-inch version appears to be in the cards.”

White didn’t elaborate on the device’s sizes, but the larger Fire Amazon is readying is rumored to feature a display similar in size to the iPad’s, if not larger — 10.1 inches.

As for that smartphone I mentioned, details are slim. (And this has been rumored before, of course.) White says only that he’s heard chatter suggesting it’s in the works, with a presumed 2012 launch date.

“Our research suggests Amazon is currently working on a smartphone that we believe is planned to launch this year and could prove to be more sophisticated than many smartphones on the market,” White says.

Not much to go on there. That said, it’s worth noting, given recent comments by Skyhook Wireless Ted Morgan suggesting that we’ll see a major smartphone released before the end of the year, running a modified version of Android not sanctioned by Google.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120409/will-we-see-an-amazon-smartphone-this-year/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120403/its-big-its-blue-its-windows-but-can-it-beat-rival-phones/ http://allthingsd.com/20120403/its-big-its-blue-its-windows-but-can-it-beat-rival-phones/#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2012 01:01:41 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://allthingsd.com/?p=192909 In the lucrative and competitive world of smartphones, Apple’s iPhone is the most popular device and Google’s Android—used by phone makers like Samsung and Motorola—is the most widely used operating system. With Palm gone, and the BlackBerry staggering, most smartphone buyers and app developers now think of it as a two-horse race.

However, Microsoft and Nokia, two former thoroughbreds of the smartphone market in the days before the iPhone changed the game, are determined to change that. They’ve teamed up in the hope of offering an appealing third choice. So far, Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system has struggled to attract either buyers or app developers. But on April 8, Nokia and AT&T will begin selling the first high-end, 4G LTE, Windows Phone model released in the U.S., the Lumia 900.

The Lumia 900 looks rather different from other smartphones. It’s a solid, sturdy, single slab of rounded blue plastic—yes, blue—with a large, thin, bright screen that appears to lie on top, instead of being inset. (For the less adventurous, it also comes in black, and, in a few weeks, white.)

Plus, for an unspecified “limited time,” it costs just $100, half the typical $200 price of most other top-of-the-line competitors. That price requires a two-year AT&T contract whose fees start at $80 a month for a very minimal amount of data and voice minutes, plus unlimited texting. (It’s $60 without the texting plan.)

I’ve been testing the Lumia 900 and found that it provides the best home yet for the attractive Windows Phone software, but still doesn’t measure up to rival smartphones.

The Lumia 900’s screen is much larger than the iPhone’s, but the phone isn’t as big and bulky as some recent Android models.

The screen is a roomy 4.3 inches—much larger than the iPhone’s—but the phone itself, while larger than an iPhone, isn’t as big and bulky as some recent Android models. I found it comfortable in the hand and the pocket.

When on an LTE network, the phone delivered download speeds of between 10 and 15 megabits per second in my tests, faster than most home Internet connections. Voice calls were clear and reliable, and the rear camera delivers 8 megapixel resolution.

Also, the Lumia 900 features the three biggest advantages of the Windows Phone platform—a handsome, distinctive, tile-based user interface; a mobile version of Microsoft’s Xbox Live gaming network; and a mobile version of genuine Microsoft Office, which allows you to edit documents and share them with PCs and Macs, or store them in the cloud.

But, overall, I consider the Lumia 900 a mixed bag. Unless you are a big Windows Phone fan, or don’t want to spend more than $100 upfront, I can’t recommend the Lumia 900 over the iPhone 4S, or a first-rate Android phone like Samsung’s Galaxy S II series.

I was underwhelmed by the battery life, the browser, and the quality of its photos.

Plus, the Windows Phone platform has only a fraction of the third-party apps available for its rivals—about 70,000, versus nearly 600,000 for the iPhone and more than 450,000 for Android.

It also has a weaker content ecosystem. For instance, there is no way to buy TV shows or movies directly from the phone, and far fewer magazine and newspaper apps are available.

And if LTE—which I consider the only true 4G network in the U.S.—matters to you, bear in mind that AT&T offers that service in just 31 markets, versus 203 for Verizon. In most places, the Lumia, like other AT&T phones, including the AT&T version of the iPhone, delivers a slower version of 4G, which is really just a souped-up version of 3G.

The Windows Phone software itself on this new phone hasn’t changed. Instead of multiple pages of icons, as on iPhone and Android, it offers a scroll of tiles that show information. And it still has “hubs” that combine information like contacts and social-media updates for people you know.

Still, despite its flaws, including the likelihood of a lot of scrolling to get to apps, it remains a refreshing change from the dominant competitors.

My biggest problem was with the Web browser, a mobile version of Internet Explorer.

Back in January, when I tested the same browser on an entry-level Nokia Windows Phone, it worked fine on both the cellular network and on my Wi-Fi network. But the Lumia 900 stalled frequently when rendering websites on my fast, home Wi-Fi network, though the phone did fine on LTE.

To make sure my Wi-Fi wasn’t faulty, I tried some of the same sites, in the same spot, on an iPhone, an Android phone and even an older Samsung Windows Phone. All worked perfectly. Nokia had no explanation for this problem.

I found that, in light use, the battery lasted through a typical day. But in heavier use, including lots of email usage and Web browsing, streaming a one-hour TV show via Netflix, and conducting an hour-long phone call, the battery drained more quickly and was almost gone by late in the afternoon. This was especially true if I was using LTE much of the time.

While the Lumia 900’s processor is single-core, not the common dual-core found on other high-end phones, I found the phone worked smoothly and quickly, and played videos fine.

The screen resolution of 800 by 480 is lower than the iPhone’s, and I found the display generally less sharp than the Apple’s. The screen visibility was a bit better outdoors than most other phones I’ve tested, but not dramatically so.

The camera, despite having the same resolution as the new iPhone, took notably worse pictures of the same scenes in my tests. To my eye, colors were oversaturated, and details were less sharp.

There were a few other issues. The Mac version of Microsoft’s Windows Phone syncing software wouldn’t recognize the Lumia 900, though the PC version did. The on-off button isn’t labeled, or easily distinguishable, from the dedicated camera button.

Bottom line: If you’re looking for a $100, high-end smartphone, or are a Windows Phone fan who has been waiting for better hardware, the Lumia 900 is worth considering. But the phone had just too many drawbacks in my tests to best its chief competitors.

Write to Walt at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120403/its-big-its-blue-its-windows-but-can-it-beat-rival-phones/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120402/hp-envy-spectre-14-a-premium-ultrabook-at-a-premium-price/ http://allthingsd.com/20120402/hp-envy-spectre-14-a-premium-ultrabook-at-a-premium-price/#comments Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:00:04 +0000 Lauren Goode http://allthingsd.com/?p=191712 Over the past six months in the personal computing world, there has been much ado about Ultrabooks — thin, lightweight laptops with Intel-determined technical specifications that compete with Apple’s MacBook Air. Windows PC makers like Dell, Lenovo, Asus and Acer have all introduced Ultrabooks, and Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest computer maker, has gotten into the game as well.

This week, I’ve been testing the HP Envy Spectre 14, a glass-covered laptop that falls into the Ultrabook category. The Envy Spectre hit the market in February, and the base model currently retails for $1,400.

I liked the Envy Spectre. It’s eye-catching, lighter than the laptop I usually carry, and zippy in terms of its processing power. But compared to other Ultrabooks, it’s heavier and more expensive. It’s really more of a premium product, rather than an ultra-light laptop. Also, there were a couple elements of its design, such as the fact that it wasn’t tapered and the lid was hard to open, that might prevent it from being my main laptop squeeze.

The Envy Spectre 14 is 20 millimeters thick — just over 0.79 inches — and has a 13.3-inch-wide body with a 14-inch-diagonal LED-backlit display. It weighs just shy of four pounds. In comparison, the Dell XPS 13, which AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg recently reviewed, is, at its largest point, 0.71 inches thick and just under three pounds. The 13-inch MacBook Air, which at its largest point is 0.68 inches thick, also weighs in at 2.96 pounds.

Despite its thickness, the HP Envy Spectre 14 is an attractive laptop. Its aluminum body is covered with Gorilla Glass, the thin, chemically-strengthened glass that makes up the displays of many smartphones and tablets. The glass is layered over three areas of the laptop: The lid, the 1600 by 900 pixel display screen and the palm rest. The trackpad is coated with chemically etched glass, which gives it slightly more traction than the cool-to-the-touch, super glossy Gorilla Glass.

The glass is scratch-resistant — I threw my keys into my laptop bag a few times, and the laptop wasn’t scratched — but it’s definitely not smudge-resistant. As with my smartphone and iPad, it was only a matter of time before the Spectre was covered with cloudy fingerprints. Fortunately, HP has included a protective case with the laptop.

The Spectre comes with a 128 gigabyte solid-state drive, 4GB of memory, runs Windows 7 and is powered by an Intel Core i5 processor, with the option to upgrade to a faster i7 processor for an extra $200. For an additional $300, you can also get a 256GB solid-state drive.

When I fired up the Envy Spectre for the first time, I noticed how quickly it booted up and how fast it was compared to my regular laptop, a fully loaded MacBook Pro. I downloaded iTunes, purchased a new album, installed a new Web browser and ran multiple Web pages at once, including a video-streaming site; even with all that going on, the Envy Spectre didn’t seem to slow down at all.

HP claims 9.5 hours of battery life with the Envy Spectre, provided that the user has the laptop set to HP’s recommended power-saving settings. In my test of the Spectre, which involved turning off power savers and setting the display to full brightness, connecting to Wi-Fi, playing an iTunes playlist nonstop and running an email application, the battery lasted just over five hours. With more normal usage, I estimate you’ll get about an hour more.

After a week with the Envy Spectre, there were a couple of elements of its design that bugged me. The first is that it’s actually difficult to open. There’s a barely-there lip on the lid of the laptop, and every time the device was shut, I had to dig my nails around the edges to pry it open.

I also noticed that the Envy Spectre’s screen doesn’t recline as far back as some other laptop screens do. This laptop has a dropped hinge so the bottom of its display butts up against the keyboard, physically preventing it from going back further. I compared the Spectre to an Asus Ultrabook and even a MacBook Pro, and both laptops opened up wider than the Spectre does. For users who prefer a wide range of motion with their laptop screens, this could be a drawback.

But there were aspects of the hardware that I liked. The LED-backlit keyboard is a nice touch, and the keys had a velvety feel to them. The keys also have proximity sensors that sense when the user has stepped away from the laptop for an extended period, dimming the backlighting and acting as a minor battery-saving mechanism. While some people are used to function keys performing common shortcuts — such as F5 for refreshing a Web page — I liked that the Spectre’s function keys adjusted display brightness and controlled music playing.

There’s an easy-to-access volume-control wheel on the right-hand side of the keyboard. This is part of HP’s Beats product, offered in select computers, which is supposed to produce better-sounding audio. While Beats audio isn’t going to replace the sound system in your home or apartment anytime soon, the music tracks I listened to through the laptop sounded fuller with Beats, especially when heard through headphones.

Unlike the MacBook Air, the Envy Spectre comes with an expandable built-in Ethernet port, along with two USB ports, an HDMI port and a Mini Display port.

There are also some other sweeteners that HP threw in with the Envy Spectre 14, including Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements (which photo and video hounds will appreciate), a two-year warranty for the price of one year and a two-year Norton AntiVirus software package.

I would recommend the HP Envy Spectre 14 — but as a premium laptop, not as an Ultrabook. For consumers who want a super slim, lightweight laptop, there are options with similar technical specifications that weigh in at under three pounds and cost less.

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