Sony has announced that it still plans to release a free version of DriveClub for PlayStation Plus members.

After confirming DriveClub’s October 10 release date, Sony says the free edition of the driving game is still a work in progress.

When DriveClub was originally announced, the developer stated that there would be a free but slightly modified version of the game for PlayStation Plus subscribers.

Despite the game’s repeated launch delays, it looks like Sony hasn’t given up on those original plans, a Sony representative told CVG.

Back in July, Sony detailed the differences between the free DriveClub and the full digital/physical edition of the game.

“Yes, the PS Plus version will be exactly the same as the full version, except that it may be missing some assets like cars or tracks that will be found in the full version. However, the online multiplayer, asynchronous challenges, and single-player campaign will all be present in the PS Plus version,” Sony said in a Q&A session.

Sony’s goal in launching a free PlayStation Plus version is to ensure the game launches with a strong user base, which could be a pretty smart move for the PS4 maker.

“The PS Plus version gives us the largest open community from day one. This game is all about socializing.”

Of course, if you want those missing tracks or cars, Sony offers an upgrade option between versions.

“You could download the full version and then decide you want to convert that to the full digital version, then you can pay an amount of money and everything else will be delivered to you.”

DriveClub will be available exclusively for the PS4 in the UK on October 10th, a year after its initial delay just weeks before its originally expected release.

Read more: Best PS4 Games

OnePlus has announced the OnePlus One public release date for mid-June.

If you don’t feel like smashing your smartphone to enter the OnePlus contest and win one of 100 of the phones, all you have to do is wait until June for it to be available for purchase.

OnePlus announced general availability for its first smartphone in a blog post, which also revealed that OnePlus’ version availability will be staggered.

“After our product announcement, we realized that a lot more people wanted the One than we originally anticipated. Over the past few days, we’ve been feverishly adjusting our production schedule to ensure that as many people as possible can buy the One as quickly as possible,” OnePlus’ Carl said in a forum post.

The OnePlus One Silk White 16GB version will be available for the first batch of invitees from mid to late May, with a larger batch of 64GB Sandstone Black models coming in early June.

There will be a slew of other OnePlus One models later in June, and the company states, “People who want it should be able to get an invite in June without much trouble.”

The OnePlus One is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core processor clocked at 2.5GHz and 3GB of RAM.

It sports a 5.5-inch 1080p Full HD display and a 13-megapixel rear camera complemented by a 5-megapixel front-facing snapper.

The 16GB model costs £229, but the 64GB model is just £269, which is considerably cheaper than flagship alternatives like the Samsung Galaxy S5 and HTC One M8.

Read more: OnePlus One vs Oppo Find 7a: What’s different?

The HTC One M8 Prime could launch later this year as a premium alternative to the original HTC One M8.

According to a new post from a notorious tech tipster @evleaksHTC could prepare a premium version of its brand new flagship.

“Forget the ace. What you’re really waiting for is the codename M8 Prime,” read the tweet.

To be honest, despite the usual accuracy of @evleaks rumours, we’re not sold on the thought of a premium version of the HTC One M8.

We can put the rumors of a Samsung Galaxy S5 Prime with an all-metal body and 2K screen behind us, but how could HTC improve the quality of the HTC One M8, which already comes with a uni-body aluminum casing.

We figured HTC might launch the M8 Prime with a larger 2K QHD resolution display and possibly a better-resolution camera, boosting the current dual-sensor 4 UltraPixel rear camera.

The Taiwanese company could even introduce the more powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor, but when you combine these three it’s practically a brand new flagship.

We’re only speculating at this point, but could the M8 Prime be another name for the M8 Max? This would then match the HTC One Mini and HTC One Max launch lineup offered for the original HTC One.

Despite the larger screen and fingerprint scanner, the HTC One Max’s spec sheet didn’t live up to the standard set by the flagship smartphone.

Maybe then HTC will make a Sony Xperia Z1 Compact for us and make sure the M8 Max matches the hardware of the One M8 but increases the screen size.

While we’re not convinced by this latest rumor, as usual we’ll keep our ears to the ground and update you with any new information we find.

Read more: HTC One M8 vs Samsung Galaxy S5

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Internal Speakers

Although tablets are designed as media consumption devices, many of them have terrible internal speakers. Amazon put a little more effort into the Kindle Fire HD 8.9’s speakers, using two drivers that sit as a stereo pair on the back of the tablet.

It has a built-in Dolby Digital Plus mode that adjusts the sound to make the most of the still-weak drivers. We’re a bit disappointed that the speaker array doesn’t seem to have been significantly improved over what you get in a 7-inch Kindle Fire HD, but it remains a cut above almost all budget Android tablets.

Proper stereo drivers are a huge bonus when watching a movie or TV series, and the sound is more authoritative and powerful than a single-driver tablet.

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Camera

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 only offers a single front camera, facing whoever is using the tablet, which can be used for video calls and the like. There’s no rear camera, and it’s not something many taste buds are likely to miss. A phone can replace a compact camera, but a 600g 9-inch tablet cannot.

To begin with, there’s no obvious use for the front camera – there’s no dedicated camera app. However, it works with the Skype app, which has a link to it in your app folder by default, and other camera-enabled Android apps. The camera uses a 1.3 megapixel sensor, a mid-range model that will allow you to do decent video conferencing.

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Battery Life

The Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is about making sacrifices in some areas to gain in others. Battery life is another solid win.

It has a larger battery than the 7-inch version and performs admirably against both the 10-inch and 7-inch Android competition. When the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 was set to play a looping video with Wi-Fi off and brightness at 50 percent, it stayed awake for 10 hours.

This is a tablet that, fortunately, can survive the duration of a transatlantic flight – in other words, a handful of movies. However, we’ll find that the brightness isn’t all that high at 50 per cent, so you’ll probably want to jack it up a little higher for a better experience.

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 value

There are some significant compromises with the Kindle Fire HD 8.9, but Amazon has made almost all of them in just the right places. The main camera, expandable memory and quad-core processor are missing. But the high-quality screen and the fairly low price make up for it.

The remaining problem is the one that’s hardest to forgive – that the Kindle Fire UI is often sluggish, relies too heavily on Amazon’s connected services, and stalls the customization that’s a huge benefit of Android. If that doesn’t sound like too much trouble, however, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 makes a lot of sense.

verdict

Like the 7-inch version, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 offers excellent value for money. There’s a lot of quality hardware on offer here at a reasonable price, with the high-resolution screen being a standout feature. However, you pay for these Amazon subsidies elsewhere. The Kindle Fire software is much slower than vanilla Android at this point, making it more frustrating to use than non-Amazon tablets.

How we test tablets

We thoroughly test every tablet we test. We use industry standard tests to properly compare features and we use the tablet as our primary device during the review period. We will always tell you what we find and we never accept money to rate a product.

Learn more about how we test in our Ethics Policy.

Used as our main tablet during the period

Verified against recognized industry benchmarks

Ongoing real tests

Tested with various games, apps and services

points in detail

• performance 6

• value 9

• design 7

• screen quality 8

• functions 6

• battery life 8

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Interface and Android

As part of the Kindle experience, Amazon has developed a custom user interface for its Kindle Fire tablets. The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 runs Android, but the Kindle interface is so different from the look of Google’s vanilla OS that you might not guess unless someone told you.

The home screen is a scrolling conveyor belt to digital content you’ve recently accessed, whether it’s an app, game, or book. The idea is that most of the time, you can access what you’re looking for with just a flick through.

The other content of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is organized as tabs across the top of the screen. This includes the web browser, your apps and games stash, and the Amazon Apps Store.

You don’t get access to the Google Play Android Apps Store with the Kindle Fire HD 8.9, nor do Google’s own apps – Amazon wants to go its own way with the Kindle Fire tablet series.

The custom Amazon Appstore doesn’t have quite as many apps or games as Google’s own store, but the Amazon name has ensured that it still has a healthy crop. There are now relatively few gaping holes in its lineup.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 offers most of the big games and apps you’d get with a Google Nexus 7, but if you’re used to Android in its pure form, day-to-day navigation takes a little getting used to.

Rather than sitting at the bottom like Android Jelly Bean, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9’s main navigation bar sits on the right edge of the screen and is designed for right-thumb use. Yes, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 hates left-handers – we couldn’t find a way to switch the menu to the left either.

While mastering the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 software requires a bit of patience, it’s still reasonably accessible. The user interface also works better here than on the 7-inch version, giving the navigation tabs more room to spread out.

However, there is a serious problem. It’s just not fast. Compared to a tablet running Android 4.1 or 4.2 Jelly Bean, there are irritating little pauses between transitions that make moving around the UI tedious.

It’s not due to a lack of performance, because the reasonable TI OMAP dual-core 1.5 GHz CPU and 1 GHz RAM should be enough to make the tablet fly. It’s more due to a lack of optimization and that the software is said to be based on a previous Android version. The Android operating system only got really fancy with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, which introduced a number of speed improvements as part of Google’s “Project Butter” optimization project. The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 does not benefit from this. It also performs horribly when not connected to the internet, as so much of the content displayed is streamed directly from the internet, rather than relating to what’s actually on the tablet itself.

However, jump into an app or game and the performance is much better. It has the grunt to play top 3D games like Real Racing 3. You just need a bit more patience to wait for the tablet to access the thing.

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 – Music and Video

Although you can install tons of apps and games with the Kindle Fire HD 8.9, Amazon really wants you to use the tablet to access Amazon’s own services. This is the Amazon bookstore, his music store, the video store and the newsstand.

These services combine some big brands. The book store is Kindle’s, the music store is the same MP3 treasure trove you’ll find on the Amazon website and the film hub is LoveFilm, which was acquired by Amazon in January 2011 for a hefty £200m.

Amazon won’t let you ignore these services too easily, as they all get irremovable shortcuts on the home screen. But they’re all pretty excellent, so we don’t mind that too much.

The Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 can also play your own content. Each section of the tablet has cloud and device tabs. The latter lets you play your own music and videos, which you can drag and drop onto the tablet’s internal storage using a desktop computer.

However, the codec support is limited. So if you want to play files you downloaded from the internet, you probably need a third-party media player app. However, several free ones are available on the Amazon Appstore.

How we test tablets

We thoroughly test every tablet we test. We use industry standard tests to properly compare features and we use the tablet as our primary device during the review period. We will always tell you what we find and we never accept money to rate a product.

Learn more about how we test in our Ethics Policy.

Used as our main tablet during the period

Verified against recognized industry benchmarks

Ongoing real tests

Tested with various games, apps and services

Apple’s next-gen iPhone 5S will go on sale sometime in July, after a big reveal on June 20, according to reports from Japan.

While it doesn’t say where it got its information from, the twenty-year-old MacFan site reports that the launch event has been set and the device will go on sale a few weeks later.

Electronista calls the rumor “plausible” in its report on the matter and certainly fits with many other rumors that have been presented in recent weeks

A June launch would see Apple return to the summer release schedule for the first time in three years.

For the past two years, the company has unveiled iOS at WWDC in June before releasing it alongside a new iPhone in the fall.

The iPhone 4S was launched in October, while last year’s iPhone 5 was launched in September. This was followed by three consecutive June product launches for the device, which was first launched in January 2007.

What could be Apple’s thinking behind a summer launch?

Well, it would shorten the time Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One, and Sony Xperia Z were on sale before a new iPhone hits the market.

That timeframe is currently around six months and a July release date would cut it down to just three.

The MacFan report goes on to say that the rumored low-cost iPhone is being held back for later in the year, specifically August, with the handset being tailored for the Indian and Chinese markets.

Do you think the reports can be believed? Will Apple break with tradition and launch the iPhone 5S this summer? Let us know in the comment section below.

About: Electronista

Apple has apparently “confirmed” to game developers that it will release an official, dedicated game controller for iOS titles later this year.

Reporting from the Games Developers’ Conference in San Francisco, PocketGamer.biz said Apple has openly discussed its plans with games industry figures to ensure high-profile titles will be compatible with the peripheral at launch.

The report claims Apple was active at the show, briefing developers on the Control Pad from a meeting room booked under an alias to keep everything under the radar.

According to PocketGamer sources, Apple plans to officially unveil the long-rumored Control Pad at a media event in April, which is rumored to see the arrival of the iPad 5 and iPad mini 2.

The device, or a prototype, wasn’t physically on display at the show, and developers have not yet been notified of a possible release date, according to the report.

The introduction of a dedicated controller would likely be Apple’s answer to the Kickstarter-funded, Android-based Ouya games console, which brings smaller, mobile-style games into the living room for £100.

The aim of this console is to offer a previously blocked entry into the living room for small, independent game developers who have until now struggled for a voice on the big consoles.

Apple’s offering would free gamers from the touchscreen (we’d certainly love to play FIFA 13 on a controller) but also open the door for the rumored launch of an app store for the Apple TV set-top box where users can keep playing her television.

Apple has yet to officially confirm the launch of this peripheral, but we’re sure it would sell by the absolute bucket load if today’s reports prove correct.

It wouldn’t be the first peripheral to hit the market, there is
Plenty of third-party options, like the ION iCade already available, but stick an Apple logo on a gaming controller and watch it fly.

About PocketGamer.biz

advantages

• Solid build quality
• Wireless listening via Bluetooth
• Good sound quality
• Dolby Digital Plus via app

disadvantage

• Touch controls can be a bit confusing
• Headband is a bit tight

key specifications

• Evaluation Price: £199.00
• Bluetooth wireless
• 40mm dynamic driver
• Dolby Digital Plus amplification via app

introduction

Wireless headphones are pretty much everywhere now. Although some see Bluetooth headphones as a gimmick, the Jabra Revo wireless headphones certainly work well and deliver wireless sound to your ears.

The Jabra Revo Wireless headphones produce super-clear, rich sound that can be further enhanced with the Jabra Revo Wireless Sound app, which brings Dolby Digital Plus amplification into the mix. The only downside is that even at £199 the headphones are more of an investment than an impulse buy.

Jabra Revo Wireless – design and features

The Jabra Revo Wireless headphones offer a very compact and slim design. This makes them incredibly suitable for travel and also a dream for commuters.

Travel-ready design features include collapsible earcups for easy storage and portability, a durable and strong aluminum frame, steel hinges, and a shatterproof, snug-fitting headband. However, the metal construction means they aren’t the lightest headphones out there.

Of course, the most notable hardware feature of the Jabra Revo Wireless is that it’s wireless, and the good news here is that setting it up to connect to your phone or MP3 player via Bluetooth is a fairly simple process.

On the side of the headphones you will find a dedicated on/off/pairing switch. Simply hold the button in the “pairing” position for three seconds until the blue light flashes. There’s even a helpful, if slightly annoying, Dalek-style voice that whistles through the headphones to instruct you on how to pair your device with them.

If you have an NFC (Near-Field Communication)-enabled device, it’s even easier, as you simply tap your device on the left earcup.

The Jabra Revo Wireless headphones are designed to be highly tactile and interactive. With turntable touch control (essentially touch-sensitive pads on the side of the earbuds), they allow the listener to play, skip and pause music, as well as manage incoming calls. You can also use the Turntable to adjust the volume by sliding your finger across the Turntable Touch in a circular motion.

Other features of the Jabra Revo wireless headphones include an additional 3.5mm jack connection, which allows you to continue listening if the battery dies while using Bluetooth. You can take calls hands-free even when the cable is not connected because a microphone has been built into the headphones. When using the cable, it has a multi-function button that lets you answer calls and play/pause music – similar to the Turntable Touch’s features.

The wireless battery life for the Jabra Revo wireless headphones is pretty impressive, with up to 12 hours of wireless music/talk. However, charging takes about 2-4 hours with the included USB cable. The flashing red battery icon on the side of the Jabra Revo Wireless headphones is a useful feature that lets you know when they need to be charged. However, since the battery icon is placed rather awkwardly at the bottom of the headphones, the indicator can be difficult to see.

Jabra Revo Wireless – Dolby App

The Jabra Revo Wireless Sound app that comes free with the headphones might seem like a bit of an overkill when the connected device also has its own music player. However, it offers some audio improvements.

The Dolby Digital Plus button in the app is a great feature as it lets you instantly differentiate between sound quality. It adds fullness and bass weight. Alongside this, the Jabra Sound app also has bass and high-frequency adjustment, as well as a preset equalizer option, allowing you to tailor the sound to suit your sound preferences.

The Jabra Revo Wireless headphones also have a Jabra Sound app button on the headphones, which launches the corresponding app on your phone. The downside to all of this is that the sheer volume of function buttons on the headphones can seem a bit confusing and unnecessary. Here a lot is touched and knocked on the auricles.

Jabra Revo Wireless – Sound quality

The Jabra Revo wireless headphones offer impressive sound quality for such compact headphones. With a 40mm dynamic speaker on each side, the sound is rich and clear, while the padded memory earphones are designed to cancel out most of the noise and also mold to your ears.

While they’re not noise-cancelling headphones, the clear sound quality of the Jabra Revo Wireless means you don’t have to blow up your music to hear it. With that in mind, these headphones will be very loved by other passengers on your train journeys.

By far the most impressive feature of these headphones is the Dolby Digital Plus Enhanced Sound (enabled via the included Jabra Sound app). The enhanced Dolby Digital Plus sound offers a rich depth to the music that unfortunately comes with the price tag. With the amount of features packed into the headphones, it’s easy to get distracted by the sound quality. And if you are willing to do without all the fancy extras, you can get better sound for the same price elsewhere.

verdict

Designed with the commuter in mind, the Jabra Revo wireless headphones offer great sound quality, Bluetooth wireless connectivity and solid build quality. While the robust design is a key feature, it can also be a minor pitfall, as the Jabra Revo Wireless’ headband isn’t the most comfortable due to its tight fit.

The headphones are built to last though, which is why their price tag falls towards the higher end of the spectrum at £199. With all the extra features like the touch-sensitive Turntable Touch earbuds (which can be quite confusing), it’s the rich sound quality that outweighs it – particularly the Dolby Digital Plus feature in the app, which really boosts the sound for bass lovers.

points in detail

• value 7

• Design & Features 7

• Microphone quality 7

• sound quality 8