Apple has upgraded without a lot of fanfare the iPod Touch and it brings in a bunch of performance improvements that take it closer to what the iPhone can do without actually becoming a phone. One of these features is a 120fps HD 720p video capture mode akin to that one on the iPhone 5 and iPhone 6. Sadly no 240fps video mode has been included in this device.
Many question the existence of such a device in this day of cheap smartphones with similar capabilities but the product still fills a niche market of people not wanting to pay for a wireless phone plan in order to be exposed to the Apple ecosystem of apps and features.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
The rumor mill has lit up with all kinds of leaked info about the upcoming iPhone replacement the iPhone 6s and 6s+. When it comes to high frame rates the current iPhone doesn’t disappoint; however the prospect of higher resolution slow motion is tantalizing in an Apple product. The current iPhone 6 spec is capped at 120fps and 240fps 1280*720 HD res and 60fps at 1920*1080 Full HD resolution. While the resolution is hardly to be considered HD at the moment considering it is skipping lines and creating artifacts; the look and feel of the footage thanks to clever processing is not that bad. It is still on the top ranks for slow motion phones to own.
DxO the company associated with DXO Optics Pro RAW conversion and for it’s popular camera sensor rating scores has released their first hardware product based on a coupling with the Apple iPhone and iPad devices with lightning connector.
The camera attaches in the thunderbolt charging port and lets you swivel the phone or tablet screen for easier viewing angles. The power of the camera comes from what could be the highest quality portable device camera to date. The RAW and Super RAW modes claim unprecedented image quality with scores in RAW mode of 70 DxO points and in Super RAW of 85 points. In contrast the original full frame Canon 5D Mark 1 only gathered a sensor score of 71 in RAW mode. While the results show a clear progression in sensor technology they simply cannot match the aesthetics of a full frame sensor with a 1″ inch sensor.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
The specs for the newest and greatest ARM phone chip the A72, show that it is close to 3.5 times more powerful than ARM’s previously released Cortex-A15. It is also powerful enough to record and process 4K video at a rate of 120 frames per second.
While the specs of this 32 and 64bit capable chip look mighty impressive it is a predictor of things to come. These reference design chips are used for example by Apple in their A architecture because the company has an architectural license agreement with ARM; that has proved to be an amazing performer because Apple tweaks the design to perform incredibly fast in their devices sometimes above 50% from the reference design in some specific applications.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
Apple today refreshed both the iPad Air and the iPad Mini lines with basically just refined specs but not a re-design or groundbreaking update. The iPad Air 2 is adding the 120fps 720p slow motion feature first seen on the iPhone 5s and bettered in the iPhone 6. However the iPad is not as generous as the iPhone 6’s 240fps and only sports half the frame rate.
Furthermore the iPad Mini 3 has no slow motion feature and seems the least refreshed tablet. If you want an iPad Tablet this year then the iPad Air 2 is a better option overall. If you just got an iPhone 6 or 6+ then both iPad models will be downgrades in performance and features except for the larger screens. For slow Motion the iPhone 6 is still the best bet for Apple products continuing forward.→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
We have gathered a few iPhone 6 slow motion samples that show the strength and weaknesses of the phone. Noise wise it is a great performer and the quality of the codec looks to be very good. Aliasing and moire is still a problem as there seems to be some line skipping to generate 120fps and 240fps. There is also a drop in quality in 240p compared to 120p. We estimate that more likes are skipped to get to 240p but it is still not to bad a drop.
We however can deem it the best quality slow motion from a phone so far released. You can’t go wrong with the iPhone 6 as a slow motion portable device, especially if your phone contract is renewing. Competition will heat up in the slow motion phone race when Mediatek releases phones by the end of this year with higher capabilities and full HD 1080p. Until those are released and tested the iPhone 6 is kind of the slow-mo phones…Enjoy the samples!→ Continue Reading Full Post ←
