Hands-On With The Black iPhone 5

Today in tech, was wholly dedicated to the release of the iPhone 5. That insanely thin, slim and mesmerizing beauty of metal and glass they call the iPhone five. The best iPhone Apple has ever made. If you must know, it feels even better to hold and use than the iPhone 4/S, and it's simply better in every way you look at it. As you can tell, the black iPhone 5 is undeniably sleek and stealthy like a Lockheed SR-71 from every angle you look at it compared to the white and silver toned iPhone 5. Initially, we feared that the black finish would wear off very easily, however, so far it seems to hold up very well with normal use. With that said, the white and silver iPhone 5 will show less wear and scratches over time.

Once you get one of these in your hands, the absolute best feature about the iPhone 5 isn't the boost in processing and graphics power, camera, faster wireless speeds or Lightning port. What really matters is the impressive 7.6mm thickness and wonderfully bright, crisp and accurately saturated 4-inch Retina display that's entirely within your thumb's reach compared to some of the ridiculously large screened smartphones out there. What's also noticeable is how lightweight the iPhone 5 feels and how naturally it seems to fit in your hand. The new taller form factor doesn't feel as awkward is it may seem, and it only benefits from having such a slim and extremely solid, tightly packed cement brick-like construction unmatched by any other smartphone that we know of.

Although we're a bit late to the party, we thought it would only be pretty cool of us to share with you our brand spanking new black iPhone 5 in the best possible way we can. It's the 32GB, AT&T model if you really must know. Click thru the gallery down below! And don't forget to snatch up a few Retina wallpapers if you want to customize your iPhone 5, or better yet protect your investment with a case using our ultimate iPhone 5 case guide.

MacBook Pro With Retina Display Hands-On

Apple's new MacBook Pro with Retina display isn't just the best looking MacBook of all time, it's the best portable performing Mac money can buy. With the power of Apple's very own snappy SSD storage, a magnificent 2880x1800 screen resolution and powerful processing power all packed into a slim unibody enclosure, your $2,200 are just about worth it all. All things aside, we think the Retina display is really the cream of the crop and should be the first decision factor you should be thinking about if you're looking to grab yourself a Retina MacBook Pro.

It should be a no brainer for industry professionals, photographers and graphic designers. The new behemoth resolution opens up quite a lot of incompatibility on the web, however. Sites, apps and photos that aren't Retina-ready will look drastically worse than you've ever seen them before. It'll take time until developers learn how to best support such high display resolution. In the meantime, the MacBook Pro's Retina display is unbelievably sharp, clear and full of rich vivid contrast that looks incredible from any angle. Text looks beautiful regardless, and Apple's own apps including OS X Lion and Mountain Lion fully support the Retina resolution. Most if not all third party apps don't, at least as of today.

We noticed so much more detail in just about everything compared to using ordinary, albeit high screen resolutions. It's pretty amazing, and something you just need to experience first hand. If you're viewing our hands-on photos with a non-Retina display, you have no idea how much sharp detail you're not seeing. Subtle textures are much more pronounced by the Retina resolution.

Our hands-on gallery is down below! Scroll thru, click an image to see it full size.

Amazon Kindle Fire First Impressions

Amazon's new fiery hot $200 Kindle Fire tablet is finally here with us. We're going to give it the unboxing treatment it deserves so be sure to check out the gallery down below. Amazon has a very strong ecosystem that is shown when using the Kindle Fire. Music and videos are streamed from Amazon's cloud service and apps can be purchased and downloaded from Amazon's very own Appstore. Although the Kindle Fire sole heart is an Android operating system, the Kindle Fire is heavily skinned and customized per Amazon's taste creating a more unique user experience that differs from other Android tablets on the market. Though after using the Kindle Fire, it seemed to be a bit sluggish and not quite up to par with other tablets in terms of speed and responsiveness.

The Kindle Fire boasts a 7-inch IPS touchscreen display with 16-million colors at 1024x600 resolution, WiFi, dual-core processor and 8GB of internal storage plus 5GB of free Amazon Cloud storage. The 7-inch form factor feels absolutely great to hold with one hand and feels like you could take it with you everywhere you go without sweating a single drop. It also makes it more comfortable to type on the on-screen keyboard that has a spacious key layout. The back is coated with a black soft-touch rubbery texture found on Amazon's Kindle e-readers and it adds a good level of grippyness to the device, but also easily shows oily fingerprints. The screen is crystal clear, bright and reading text on it is very pleasant. I'm amazed Amazon managed to keep the price so affordable yet built a very solid tablet with a great screen. Aside from a power/sleep button at the bottom, the Kindle Fire doesn't have any other buttons or switches. There are two large speakers at the top which aren't as loud as the iPad 2's speaker, 3.5mm headphone port and a micro-USB port for charging at the bottom.  

Browsing the web feels a bit slow even though Amazon's praised Silk browser that is said to handle most of the rendering of pages via the cloud doesn't come close to the fast loading speeds of the much pricier iPad 2 over a WiFi network. Granted you should not compare the two against each other as these are both completely different tablet categories. On the other hand, streaming videos and movies is amazing. Each load in the blink of an eye and start playing instantly with respectable picture quality. This is where Amazon's own services show a very strong presence in the Kindle Fire that not even the iPad competes with iTunes for instantly streaming content. Also, Amazon Prime members get access to Amazon Instant Prime library of over 10,000 movies and TV shows and can stream all of that for free.

Amazon's Appstore isn't what we would call a thriving ecosystem and it isn't filled with quality apps and the vast selection you would find in Apple's App Store or even in the Android Market. Don't worry, you'll be able to get your Angry Birds fix with the Kindle Fire as well as many other apps tailored to run on the Kindle Fire. 

The Kindle Fire comes to your doorstep inside Amazon's famous frustration-free, eco-friendly packaging with only the bare essentials included inside that is a wall power adapter. There's a slew of sleeves and cases already out for the Kindle Fire, we recommend Amazon's own Zip Sleeve for a quick protection solution, although it is overpriced. We'll have a review on it very soon. The Kindle Fire might not be the snappiest tablet around, but as a budget tablet, the Kindle Fire is worth its price without any doubt. It'll make for a nice present this holiday season for someone who uses Amazon more than anything. And that's just our first impressions with the Kindle Fire after only a day!

White Nexus S Found In The Wild

This is the real deal, a white Nexus S sporting an AT&T 3G bands and it's fully unlocked and officially real. Engadget managed to get some quality time with the white Nexus S from Google and Samsung and it looks like it's running Android 2.3.3, a.k.a Gingerbread. Aside from the AT&T bands, the white Nexus S has a textured back that makes gripping much better as well as a fingerprint-less experience. Head on over to Engadget for more pics and a bonus hands-on video.

Sony's Newly Branded Sony Store Grand Opening

Sony has announced a newly branded store that will open its doors to the masses starting tomorrow called the Sony Store. The new Sony Store is located just a few walking steps from the Apple Store at the Westfield Century City shopping mall , the first Sony Store in Los Angeles, CA. The new Sony Store has a new and completely different experience from current Sony Style stores along with many current Sony products available for hands-on experience. And what will your visit to the new Sony Store be without a plethora of 3D featured products to test out. Sony plans to roll out a few more of these redesigned Sony Stores in other cities and states. Check out the video above for an early guided tour of the brand new Sony Store. Oh and if you're planning a trip to the new Sony Store, you might want to get there early if you want to score some awesome prizes.