Review: Samsung Galaxy Note 3

Text and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Samsung has had a heck of a run with its Galaxy Note line of devices. What started out as the 'phablet' smartphone sideshow in 2011 with the original Galaxy Note and Note II, has given birth to one of the most competitive areas in mobile today. Large smartphones are now a bona-fide category. Samsung's Note line is a premium sub-brand that is a hot seller and has expanded the S Pen-capable tablet line to 8 and 10-inch variants.

In many ways, the Galaxy Note is Samsung's true flagship product and great differentiator. The Galaxy S smartphone line will continue to be popular but the recent updates have been incremental and iterative at most. The Galaxy Note 3 looks and feels like a more inspired device in form and function.

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Google Play Gift Cards now in Canada

Google Play Gift cards are now available in Canada from Shoppers Drug Mart, Future Shop, Target, 7-11, Best Buy, Mac's, Walmart, Pharmaprix, Circle K and Couche-Tard. The cards are available in $15, $25 and $50 denominations and are ideal gifts for the Android users in your life. They can be redeemed directly from the Google Play app on your device or browser and are good for apps, movies, books and more.

Google Canada showcases technology used in everyday life

Text and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Google Canada brought their tech, their toys and some of their more notable video bloggers on YouTube to a loft in downtown Toronto today to showcase the connected life at the Google Loft.

Laid out with various stations showcasing real-world situations where Google's cloud and search technology can come into play, I received first-hand demonstrations on just how capable Google's solutions are and discovered a bunch of tools I never heard of before.

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Windows Phone hits double digit market share in some European countries

It might be seen as a slow ascend but Microsoft’s Windows Phone seems to have hit the double digit mark when it comes to market share in a couple of European countries—specifically, France where it has reached 10.8 percent and Great Britain where it has reached 12 percent. According to a report from Kantar, Windows Phone has hit a cumulative 9.2 percent in the other three of the “big five European markets” (namely, Germany, Italy, and Spain).

But this still puts Windows Phone as a distant third behind Android (70.1 percent) and iOS (16.1 percent). However, you can see BlackBerry falling further and hitting the 2.4 percent market share in those same markets just a smidgen ahead of “Other” mobile operating systems.

Photo source: Engadget