The HP Spectre XT is one of those sleek looking Ultrabooks, and the moment I saw it I liked how it felt and looked. My first real Windows 8 experience at the Microsoft store in Boston, after trying out several different machines I went for the HP Spectre XT. I liked the 15-inch screen and the touch and feel of it.

It is a different machine then last years Ultrabooks, the ASUS Zenbook Prime I have is thin with a metal finish which makes it slippery and a very nice 13 inch screen. Its great for traveling, and light the battery wasn’t that great. But it was a great machine, but I wanted something a bit bigger then is more powerful and so that is why I went with HP Spectre XT. It has this industrial finish to it that makes it very appealing, it really looks like an Apple device, if I didn’t know it was an HP laptop. This was the machine I was looking for to jump into Windows 8, I’m not used to a laptop with a Touch Screen but it was an interesting idea, and people are always surprised when I make adjustments right onto the screen.

Specifications

• Operating system – Windows 8 64
• Processor – Intel® Coreâ„¢ i7-3517U (3 GHz/1.9 GHz )
• Screen size – 15.6″ diagonal full HD IPS BrightView LED-backlit (1920 x 1080)
• Memory – 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
• Hard drive – 500 GB SATA (5400 rpm)
• Secondary hard drive – Acceleration cache (32 GB Solid State Drive cache) with Intel Smart Response Technology

Pros:

• Beautiful Design, I Love The Clean Metal Feel
• Touch Screen – Works Perfectly
• Very Nicely Spaced Out Full Keyboard
• A Decent Touch Pad, but the Windows 8 gestures get a bit annoying
• The Sound On the laptop is very loud and clear, Which was Perfect for my need
• Powerful Processor – Can handle anything I threw at it

Cons:

• Seriously Horrible Battery, barely lasts two hours
• Substantially Heavy Machine
• During Hibernation it Loses Battery Power

Wrap Up

I got this laptop before the new Intel Haswell boards came out which was optimized and in all the ultrabooks. The reason why this laptop annoys me after several months of use is because of the battery, its a beautiful machine that I enjoy using but runs out of battery so quickly. It barely lasts 2.5 hours with the screen at full, and if you lower the brightness you can get it to 3.5 hours but just barely, this isn’t what we have come to know from laptops, we expect more of them. But as my first experience into Windows 8 I have to say that I enjoyed it and learned a lot, the machine itself is perfect for Windows 8, there was a lot to it that I had to figure out. For $1299 over it is a powerful laptop in a beautiful package, and the price decent, but the battery is annoying.

Rating:

Spring Breakers

Every once in a while I write about movies that were not up to my expectation, and thats rare since I enjoy most movies. Spring Breakers turned out to be one very weird and annoying movie, here I thought it would some crazy girls going on a crime spree during spring break, but I was wrong. James Franco made no sense in this movie either, from Spring Breakrs to Oz the Great & Powerful, I don’t know who is choosing his scripts but they need to fired. Don’t waste your time with this movie, it sucks.

Admission

Anything that Tina Fey does I usually love, she is the genius behind 30 Rock, I have loved the show for the past 7 years. So I was expecting this to be a pretty good comedy coming from her, and the trailer looked pretty good. But this turned out to be a comedy drama, not as funny as I was expecting. I thought it would be better, and the story revolves around Tina Fey’s character, the trailer looked funnier but it seems there was more drama, not what I was hoping for.

United Nations employee Gerry Lane traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments, and threatening to destroy humanity itself.

World War Z is based on the best selling novel by Max Brooks, I remember reading the book and it was one rollercoatser of a book, I couldn’t put it down. There were parts to the story that just pulled you in, page after page, and it was very different then your usual Zombie novel, it was a completely different take to a degree that I thought what was going on was real. I had very high expectations for the movie and there was a high budget for it with Brad Pitt in the mix. Right off the bat I liked the movie but it could have been so much better, honestly it didn’t follow anything of the novel except that Zombies over run the earth and seem somewhat unstoppable. I would have expected them to be able to get the meat of the story even the way the book presents itself is unique and this shows the talent of Max Brooks, too bad it didn’t get ported to the movie. But I enjoyed it and had a few shock moments and if you want to watch a good zombie movie this is it, but I was hoping for much more.

Link: IMDB
Rating:

Superman and Supergirl take on the cybernetic Brainiac, who boasts that he possesses “the knowledge and strength of 10,000 worlds.”

I do love these straight to DVD Movies from DC Comics, they are usually pretty good and they come out every few months so there is always something to look forward to. In Superman Unbound they took a different style to the anime, the story makes an assumption that you already know about Superman, Supergirl (Kara), and Lois Lane. The usual characters from the Superman Comics, and they jump right into the story. The animation style varies in different sequences, just enough cgi thrown in, and when it came to the fight scenes they did a fantastic job, its not your usual super powered fight scene, but a more emmersive type of drawing that pulls you in which I found to be cool. The story leads up to Braniac being the villain from beyond their Universe and Superman running into him for the first time. Story is decent, nothing too crazy, surprisingly Superman was a bit full of himself as a character and I wasn’t too keen on Lois Lane. Its a fun watch but DC Comics has done better before.

Link: IMDB
Rating:

I had a chance to get my hands on the Jaguar F-Type, the newest sports vehicle from Jaguar. The funny part is that when I got the car the first thing a friend of my uncle said to me was congratulations on the Aston Martin, he couldn’t believe it was a Jaguar. The first time I ever wanted a Jaguar was in the late 90s with the XKR came out, that was a beauty, and now I have to admit this is one beautiful looking machine. I not keen on the soft-top convertibles but they said the hard top convertibles will be out next year.

The car looks good from all angles honestly, and i really like the way they made the exhaust for the V6. For a smallish car there is a lot of space in the interior, but don’t expect any space in the trunk, especially if the top is down.

Getting in the car it really is spacious, more then I expected and I like the central console layout. The A/C & Gear controls are all buttons with the infotainment system integrated into the main screen. there is the usual Audio and Phone controls in the steering wheel. When your in sport mode you can shift the car from the F1 Paddles or from the gear lever itself which I really liked when I was driving.

Now the best part of the car is when it is in sport mode, the exhaust opens up, and it is loud, the right type of loud. You can’t help but want to go faster just to hear it around the corner and i loved the tone of that exhaust. For once I don’t think I would change the exhaust of this sports car, its perfect for it.

The handling of the car is just as fun, it really has a good grip. You feel that it is holding on even when your accelerating around a bend and pushing the car. That really surprised me, at certain times I was driving at idiotic speeds just to see how much it can go, and this car could go.

The infotainment system on the car is impressive, it’s simple enough to use but with a lot of features, makes it easy to navigate. The navigation maps are very clear and simple to use, I tried it out a few times and it worked perfectly. Bluetooth integration worked very well, I was streaming Sirius XM & Spotify from my Samsung S4, and I did the same with an iPhone and my Windows phone. Even controlling the songs through the steering wheel controls.

I honestly would not buy a Jaguar, there are just too many other better options in my opinion, also because Jaguar never made a car that I would want or need. But in this case more then a decade after the original Jaguar XKR they made the F-Type and if the V6 is this much fun I wonder how it feels to drive the V8. The V6 ranges from 22’000 KWD to 30’000 KWD, and the V8 ranges from 29’000 KWD to 38’000 KWD.

When dealing with a beautifully designed phone like the HTC One, you face one small problem, you can’t switch out the battery. I had the same issue with my Nexus 4 and I had to have a charger with me everywhere. In this case the HTC One is somewhat better, but only by a small margin and I was looking for a battery case for this phone to use when needed. There were a few options by the time I was looking, the Mophie and the i-Blason, but after taking a look at the design of the I went with the Mohpie.

I take a lot of work calls on this phone, and a lot of conference calls since it has a great speaker phone. So after looking around for a battery solution Mophie released a juice pack for fairly quickly, usually they only come out this quick for the iPhone, and the last non-iPhone they made was for the Samsung SIII and that took a while. I’m surprised they haven’t made one for the Samsung S4, but lets see how long that takes.

Pros:

• Great build quality, a nice black matte rubber finish which is smooth when gripping it, it fits snugly around the HTC One and the buttons operate perfectly. As usual design wise Mophie got the perfect fit.
• You can easily access the headphone jack without a problem, the phone charges when you connect your charger to the charging port. Voice, Sound, Flash, and Camera are not obstructed with this case, they operate perfectly.
• The status lights are on the back of the case and so is the on/off switch for the battery case. Its clear and easy to use, you can switch it on accidentally but that hasn’t happened much to me.
• The cover itself protects the phone all around and it doesn’t get scratched easily which I thought was impressive.
• For $99 it is an impressive piece of hardware, I thought it would be more expensive, very good value.
• With a 2500 mAh Capacity it can easily charge the phone more then once, and the best part is how fast it charges it.

Cons:

• Right off the bat it is bulky about twice as bulky, and it does feel heavier, but that is to be expected when your mounting a battery case to a phone. But the sleek feeling of the HTC One is gone for the sake of battery life.
• Even though it is a high quality matte rubber, it does smudge a bit, but isn’t too bad
• When your charging the phone with the case the phone gets noticeably hot, not to the extent it would explode but you can really feel it

Price: $99
Link: Mophie

As a war between humankind and monstrous sea creatures wages on, a former pilot and a trainee are paired up to drive a seemingly obsolete special weapon in a desperate effort to save the world from the apocalypse.

This honestly could not get any cooler, for the first time they made an amazing Robot vs. Monsters movie, not how bad they made Godzilla. Guillermo del Toro knew what he was doing when he put this movie together, he is known for his pop culture movies, but this one looks like it will go mainstream and I hope from the success of this movie that they make more Giant Robot & Monster Movies. The movie is clear, people are fighting for their lives against these monsters which are out to wipe out human kind while they take over the world and the only tool they have are these giant robots. I love the mount of nerdy and sci-fi details that Guillermo brings to his movies, and Pacific Rim is no different, but when Del Toro does it you really understand it. These robots are reason enough to watch the movie, loved it.

Rating:
Link: IMDB

Hobbs has Dom and Brian reassemble their crew in order to take down a mastermind who commands an organization of mercenary drivers across 12 countries. Payment? Full pardons for them all.

I hope they never stop making these movies at the rate they are going. And adding Dwayne Johnson to the mix was the perfect ingredient to make this franchise even better, its rare that a Franchise even lasts this long and becomes this successful but Justin Lin is doing something right with the crew that he has. This time around its a bit different then Rio and the action is even more insane, I don’t want to ruin it for anyone but it is intense and the story is fantastic and the combination of Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson working together is fantastic. And I love the combination of comedy and action that this group of actors bring to the table, and the action is nonstop, some machine is always going fast, and something is always exploding with a pretty good story line. I loved it and I’m hoping for an FF7, but watch it until the end you are in for a surprise.

Link: IMBD
Rating:

A young itinerant worker is forced to confront his secret extraterrestrial heritage when Earth is invaded by members of his race.

Zack Snyder tried to do something different with this Superman movie, and Henry Cavil played a pretty damn good Superman. The movie turned out to be better then I expected, I heard it got some very good reviews and I heard from some people they didn’t like it, but I honestly enjoyed it. Kevin Costner was pointless in the movie in my opinion, he didn’t fit as the father from Kansas, they should have brought the guy from Smallville the TV Show. Its a bit of a slow start but ZOD is awesome, he is the perfect bad guy in my opinion and the fight scene was fantastic. The darker tone to the movie was a good fit, and I hope that they make another one after this.

Link: IMDB
Rating:

With the release of the Samsung S4 & HTC One, everyone was running to get their hands on it, true 4G Android Devices which honestly make the iPhone 5 look like crap and its going to have to do a lot more then just another hardware design to beat these two machines. HTC have been having a hard time getting things right with Android after Samsung took the lead as the best, but I honestly think they have a great device on their hands with the HTC One. The Samsung Galaxy S4 was a smart move by Samsung, the S3 was so successful that they just improved on it slightly in regards to the design and packed it with the best possible hardware they could put together.

There were a lot of comparison and technical reviews, but I wanted a real use review of both machines to see which fit better and for what use. I wanted to really try both phones and after almost a month of having them both I can honestly say there isn’t just one conclusion, it just depends what you want because they are both really good.

Wifi

It’s very important for a device to have a strong wifi signal capability, it has to capture it and use it. And out of all the Android brands out there, I can say that Samsung has that down, they pretty much have everyone beat. And sadly the worst out of the bunch is HTC, I had the problem with the HTC One X and with the HTC One it’s signal always weaker then the S4 and sometimes it can’t see the Access Points.

Screen

The Samsung S4 screen is huge, both screens are crisp and excellent touch interface. Honestly they are both excellent. If you want the bigger screen then the Samsung S4 is the way to go, but its a matter of preference. Both of them have amazing brightness and you can easily see them during day time.

Design

Honestly hands down the HTC One wins in this department, if Apple wants to copy anyone for their next phone then it would be the HTC One. The Samsung S4 is 80% the same as the S3 just bigger screen and an aluminum frame which I liked. The one benefit to the Samsung S4 is that it feels lighter then the HTC One, but still it looks better then the S4. One aspect that I like about the S4 is the ability to add the a MicroSD Card, that is a huge win for the S4 in my case. You don’t need that much space on your phones these days but having the ability to is a huge plus.

Above is the Samsung Galaxy S4 Shot & Below is the HTC One Shot

Camera

HTC has the Ultrapixel which is sort like a supercharged 4MP which performs better then most camera phones with higher Megapixels. The HTC has the machine gun shot which shoots multiple shots and you can choose the best or keep them all which is a great feature. The Galaxy S4 has an amazingly crisp camera, they improved on their best selling Galaxy S3. And they included all the features of the Galaxy Camera with all the different settings and mode. The HTC One has the low light shots done perfectly, this is one thing that HTC has had down. Between the two I preferred the S4 camera, but it’s just barely better. And hands down both better then Apple iPhone 5.

Above is the Samsung Galaxy S4 Shot & Below is the HTC One Shot

Battery

This takes a bit longer to figure out but both Android devices lasted a full day of abuse. Nonstop wifi use, making phone calls and sending messages, they could both take it. And I know over time I will get the Mophie battery case for the either phone, and its a matter of time the case comes out for the S4 since its selling like crazy as expected.

Interface & Feel

To be very honest you can go with either of them, this really comes down to preferences. I prefer the HTC One Sense Skin feel over the Samsung Touch Skin, since its less intrusive in this case. I always prefer getting phones from Google because its a clean installation and I can do as I please, but in this case I had to choose, and the HTC One was cleaner and crispier. I just get annoyed with Samsung trying to make things more watery with the TouchWiz Skin. Now for the Sound hands down the HTC One has amazing sound, by far much better then the S4 and it can easily blast music in a room, you wouldn’t think its a phone speaker.

What I don’t like about the Samsung S4

I really hate the keyboard, had to get the Swift Keyboard so my fingers don’t feel like they are stretching across the screen. It really made me feel like I was learning how to type for the first time. The speaker is loud but not crisp, I wish they put it up front. The air gestures aren’t really that useful, I only like the finger hover when in the gallery for a preview but the rest makes you look crazy when your staring at the screen trying to make things move, if you have an S4 you know exactly what I’m talking about.

What I don’t like about the HTC One

I hate the Blink Feed, wish there was a way to get rid of it since its taking a piece of the screen that I could use and you only have a limit of 4 screens. The Weak wifi signal is a breaker for me, I have to have good wifi on my phone.

Which One

Choosing between them is tough but I had two deciding factors which were the Wifi Signal and Camera, which in this case the S4 was the better choice even though I really like the HTC One design. I picked up the Samsung S4 LTE from Al Babtain and got the HTC One from a friend. Honestly Babtain did a great job of making the phone available all over Kuwait and quickly, the HTC One was like hunting an endangered species.