December | 2015 | Imagination Works

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL – advanced Windows 10 smartphone with 2 SIM cards and 4G

Smartphone Microsoft Lumia 950 XL is one of the most powerful of company’s mobile devices, today we will talk about it; it works on Windows 10 platform, supports 2 SIM cards and LTE ( 4G ). Multitouch 5.7″ AMOLED display has WQHD ( 2560 x 1440 pixels ) resolution, 24 bits ( 16 M color ) color reproduction and 518 pixels per inch density; processor is 8-cored with 2 GHz frequency, RAM is 3 GB, there are 32 GB of built-in memory ( part of it is taken by OS and preinstalled programs ) with ability to automatically upload files to OneDrive cloud servers and extension via MicroSD slot. Smartphone supports connections in GSM, EGPRS, WCDMA ( 3G ) and LTE ( 4G ) networks; can work with 2 Nano SIM cards; and supports Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and NFC wireless connections for data transfers and communication with other devices.

Smartphone Microsoft Lumia 950 XL ( side view )

From navigation it supports : GLONASS, GPS, barometer, gyroscope and coordinates determination via Wi-Fi and A-BeiDou networks; it has lighting, proximity and orientation sensors. Main camera has 20 MP resolution; 1/2.4″ optical sensor; digital zoom; lens with 6 elements, optical image stabilization, f/1.9 aperture and 0.1 m minimal focusing distance ( camera would be great, if not small sensor size ). Frontal camera has 5 MP resolution with ability to record Full HD 1920 x 1080 video and f/2.4 aperture. Smartphone records videos in modes up to 4K and saves them in MP4 and H.264 formats with 4 channels sound in AAC LC, AMR-NB and GSM FR formats. Microsoft Lumia 950 XL has following connectors : USB 3.1 for communication with computer, external devices connection and Li-ion battery charging, DisplayPort via USB port and 1/8″ mini-jack output for headset. It can work in stand-by mode with 2 SIMs for 12 days or in talking mode for up to 25 hours and supports wired and remote Qi battery charging.

From other functions following can be mentioned : FM radio, support of DirectX 11 and Xbox, local and Internet connections encryption and ability for plugging in Microsoft Display Dock device, which allows to connect to it external display, keyboard and mouse and transform it, effectively, into fully functional computer. Rear panels are swappable, it is supplied in 2 color variants : black and white; its sizes are 151.9 ( height ) x 78.4 ( width ) x 8.1 ( depth ) mm and mass is 165 g. Package contains : Microsoft Lumia 950 XL for 2 SIM cards smartphone itself, USB-C cable, Li-ion battery, recharger, warranty card and user’s guide. Smartphone is great in all respects, but its price is 750 USD.

Olympus PEN E-PL5 – compact camera with sensor and processor of top-level OM-D 5

Lets review compact mirrorless camera Olympus PEN E-PL5, equipped with 4/3″ Live MOS sensor with 16.1 MP effective resolution, TruePic VI graphical processor and Micro Four Thirds mount for interchangeable lenses; sensor and processor are the same, as used in top-level Olympus OM-D 5 camera. It makes photos with 4608 x 3456 pixels maximal resolution and saves them in JPEG, RAW ( with 12 bits per channel precision and lossless compression ), RAW+JPEG and MPO formats; supported video recording modes are Full HD 1920 x 1080 30p, HD 1280 x 720 30p and VGA 640 x 480 30 with saving in MOV ( with MPEG‑4 AVC/H.264 image encoding ) and AVI ( Motion JPEG ) formats and Wave РСМ 16 bits and 48 kHz stereo sound recording via built in microphones or external one. ISO sensitivity levels are in 200 – 25600 range; color spaces are sRGB and AdobeRGB. Camera has no built in flash and viewfinder, there is ability to attach external ones, its 3″ touch LCD screen can be tilted and has 460 K dots resolution.

Photo-camera Olympus PEN E-PL5 ( top view )

Olympus PEN E-PL5 supports automatic and manual focus, exposure and diaphragm settings and can be used for astronomical photos making. It saves photos and videos on SD, SDHC and SDXC ( UHS-I ) flash memory cards; supports FlashAir, Eye-Fi and Bluetooth wireless connections for remote data transfers and control. It has following connectors : USB 2.0 port for communication with computer and Li-ion battery charging; combined USB/AV output; HDMI Micro Type D; Hot Shoe and Accessory Port 2. One charge of battery is enough for 360 photos; camera sizes are 110.5 ( width ) x 63.7 ( height ) x 38.2 ( depth ) mm and mass is 279 g ( only camera without lens, battery and memory card ); operating conditions are temperatures in 0 – 40 degrees on Celsius range, relative air humidity levels in 30 – 90 % range.

Photo-camera Olympus PEN E-PL5 ( back view )

Frontal handle can be unscrewed, camera is supplied in 3 color variants : black, white and silver, its body is made from metal. Package contains : Olympus PEN E-PL5 camera itself, USB cable, Li-ion battery BLS-5, recharger BCS-5, external flash FL-LM1, AV cable, CD-ROM disk with OLYMPUS Viewer 2 software, shoulder strap, warranty card and user’s guide; there are also kits with included lenses. Camera is great, giving photos and videos quality on level of professional mirrored camera Olympus OM-D 5 with improved hand grip and battery use effectiveness; from its minuses only high price can be noted, for which APS-C sensored Sony, Canon and Fujifilm compact cameras can be bought; in this case there is need to look what is better : professional technologies of OM-D 5 in compact body or APS-C sensor.

Microsoft Lumia 550 – Windows 10 smartphone with 4G and adequate price

After Windows 10 OS release Microsoft started to manufacture smartphones, based on it : Microsoft Lumia 550 – is one of them, having LTE ( 4G ) connections support and adequate for its technologies and functions price. Capacitive multi-touch display has 4.7″ size, HD 1280 x 720 pixels resolution and 24 bits ( 16 M colors ) precision; 4-cores Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 processor with 1100 MHz frequency is built into it, also 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of built-in memory ( OS and pre-installed programs take part of it ) and automatic files saving on OneDrive cloud servers; additionally there is ability to use MicroSD flash memory cards. Main 5 MP camera supports auto focus and 2x digital zoom, with 28 mm fixed focus, f/2.4 fixed aperture, 1/4″ sensor size, 0.1 m minimal focusing distance and LED flash. Frontal camera has 2 MP ( VGA 640 x 480 pixels ) resolution and f/2.8 aperture. Smartphone records video in HD 1280 x 720 30 mode and saves it in MP4 and H.264 formats with AAC LC, AMR-NB and GSM FR mono sound formats.

Smartphone Microsoft Lumia 550 ( side view )

Microsoft Lumia 550 supports following connections : GSM, EGPRS, WCDMA ( 3G ) and LTE ( 4G ); navigation includes GLONASS, GPS and Wi-Fi and A-BeiDou positioning; it has proximity, light and orientation sensors. One charge of its Li-ion battery is enough for 28 days of stand-by mode or 16 hours of talking; there are interchangeable back panels with white and black color variants. Sim-card is Nano SIM; smartphone has 3.5 mm mini-jack output for headset and Micro-USB 2.0 connector for data transfers, battery charging and remote devices plugging in; it supports Bluetooth 4.1 and Wi-Fi wireless connections for data transferring and communication with other devices. From other functions following can be noted : support of FM and internet radio, Internet and local connections encryption and support of DirectX 11 and Xbox. Its sizes are 136.1 ( height ) x 67.8 ( width ) x 9.9 ( depth ) mm and mass is 141.9 g.

Package contains : Microsoft Lumia 550 smartphone itself, USB cable, Li-ion battery, recharger, warranty card and user’s guide. This is a good smartphone with Windows 10 and 4G and adequate for its technologies and functions price point, so, in case of searching for such device, this one worth looking at.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX7 – first mirrorless camera with tilting viewfinder

Lets meet with new mirrorless photo camera Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX7 – first one with tiltable built-in electronic viewfinder. 4/3″ Live MOS sensor with 16 MP effective resolution is built into it, image is processed by Venus Engine, interchangeable lenses are attached via Micro Four Thirds mount, image stabilization is via sensor shifting. Camera makes photos with 4592 x 3448 pixels maximal resolution and saves them in JPEG ( DCF, Exif 2.3 ), RAW and MPO formats; supported video recording modes are Full HD 1920 × 1080 60fps ( signal from sensor comes with 60p frequency ), HD 1280 x 720 30fps ( 30 ) and VGA 640 x 480 30fps ( 30 ) with saving in AVCHD ( with Dolby Digital 2ch sound format ) and MP4 ( AAC 2ch ) formats. Camera records sound only via built-in microphones in stereo mode; external microphones can not be attached to it; ISO sensitivity levels are in 160 – 25600 range, color spaces are sRGB and Adobe RGB. Electronic tiltable LCD Live View viewfinder has 2.76 M dots resolution; it has built-in flash; tilting touch TFT LCD screen has 1.04 M dots resolution.

Photo camera Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX7 ( top view )

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX7 records video and photos on SD, SDHC and SDXC ( UHS-I ) flash memory cards; it supports Wi-Fi and NFC connections for remote data transfers and control. Camera allows manual and automatic control of focus, diaphragm and exposure, it can be used for astronomical photos making with use of T-mount adapter. Following connectors are placed on it : USB 2.0 for data transfers and Li-ion battery charging; HDMI Mini Type C; AV output; 2.5 mm input for remote control; and Hot Shoe; one charge of battery is enough for 320 photos making. Camera sizes are 122.6 ( width ) x 70.7 ( height ) x 54.6 ( depth ) mm and mass is 360 g ( only camera body without lens, memory card and battery ). Operating conditions are : temperature in 0 – 40 degrees on Celsius range and relative air humidity levels in 10 – 80 % range.

Photo camera Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX7 ( rear view )

Package contains : Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX7 camera itself, USB cable, Li-ion battery, recharger, CD-ROM disk with software ( PHOTOfunSTUDIO 9.2 PE, SILKYPIX Developer Studio 3.1 SE and LoiLoScope 30-days trial version ), shoulder strap, body cap, warranty card and user’s guide; there are kits with included lens, blends and caps for them. This is a great mirrorless compact camera, packaged with modern technologies and giving excellent videos and RAW photos quality; from its minuses following can be mentioned : higher, than competitors, JPEG photos compression artifacts amount ( this is inherent to all Panasonic cameras with Venus Engine ) and very high price ( when new models will come out, it will go down, but even now its technologies and functions justify its price; although for such money there is ability to buy APS-C sensored Sony, Canon and Fujifilm cameras ).

Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 – professional sound card with 2 outputs for monitor headphones

External sound card Focusrite Scarlett 6i6

Lets review today external studio-level sound card Focusrite Scarlett 6i6, working with 96 kHz maximal sampling rate and 24 bits precision; with ability to plug-in 2 Focusrite preamplifiers. On its frontal panel following connectors and controls are placed : 2 combined XLR/TRS ( 1/4″ jack ) inputs, which are able to work in microphone, Hi-Z instrumental and linear modes; for each of them these work modes switches with backlight, PAD switches, amplification controls and common phantom power +48 V switch with backlight; 2 TRS ( 1/4″ jack ) outputs for monitor headphones, their volume controls, main card’s outputs volume control and USB and MIDI connections states indicators. Its back panel has : Kensington Lock slot; SPDIF digital RCA input and output; power switch; power adapter input ( for MIDI connection ); USB port, through which it is powered and communicates with computer; MIDI input and output; 4 linear TRS ( 1/4″ jack ) outputs; and 2 linear TRS ( 1/4″ jack ) inputs.

External sound card Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 ( rear view )

Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 performs analogue to digital conversions with 109 dB dynamic range and vice a versa 106 dB; microphone inputs have THD -96 dB and -122 dB noise level; linear inputs on frontal panel has the same characteristics equal to -80 dB and -105 dB, accordingly; on back panel : –82 dB and -107 dB, accordingly; instrumental inputs noise level is -103 dB; THD of linear outputs is -100 dB. With card following software is supplied : DAW Ableton Live Lite, Scarlett MixControl ( 6×6 DSP mixer ), Scarlett Plug-in Suite ( containing VST/AU/RTAS versions of reverberation, compression, gating and equalizer plugins ), Novation Bass Station ( AU/VST versions of according software synthesizer ) and 1 GB of Loopmasters samples. Card sizes are 210 ( width ) x 180 ( depth ) x 50 ( height ) mm and mass is 1.18 kg; body of card is made of anodized aluminum and painted into beautiful maroon-scarlet color.

Ableton Live Lite – is a slightly simplified version of professional DAW of this branch; wherein its projects can be opened in advanced version and in it majority of instruments and utilities of more costly DAW are available. It allows to record and edit audio and MIDI on 8 tracks, has instruments Drum, Instrument and Effect, automatically recognizes large amount of hardware controllers ( for example, MIDI keyboards ), has large amount of built-in effects ( reverberation, compressor, equalizer, chorus, filters, delay and others ). Also Ableton Live Lite allows to plug in external VST/AU instruments and effects, supports Ableton Link technology, allowing to synchronize many DAW instances for cooperative work, has instrument Overhauled Simpler for work with audio, digital version of hardware devices ( which precisely enough simulate their work with sound ) and has large amount of other tools for professional work with sound in studios and on concerts. Program works in Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 and Mac OS X 10.7 and newer operating systems, it requires multi-core processor, 4 GB of RAM, fast Internet connection for downloading of additional files and 3 GB of hard disk space. Among artists, using professional version of this DAW, there is ability to note : Armin Van Buuren, DJ Krush, Daft Punk, Dust Brothers, Meat Beat Manifesto, Sasha and others.

For it drivers are released for Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 and Mac OS X 10.7 and newer with ASIO 2.0 and Core Audio interfaces support, allowing modern DAWs ( Avid Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Steinberg Cubase, FL Studio, Cackewalk Sonar, REAPER and others ) to use its capabilities to their full extent. Package contains : Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 sound card itself, USB cable, optical disks with drivers and software, warranty card and user’s guide. It is a good stuio sound card, allowing to work with sound on professional level; from its weak sides following can be noted : not maximal sampling rate for modern-day devices, lack of balanced inputs and outputs, and lack of Direct Monitor switch. So, when audio interface is being chosen ( from this one and of Steinberg, Behringer, Roland, ESI, M-Audio, Alesis and other manufacturers production ) there is need to look on prices of devices and accordance of their technical characteristics for specific use tasks.

Focusrite – is a British company, founded in 1985 year, it produces USB, FireWire and Thunderbolt audio interfaces, microphone amplifiers, analogue equalizers and other hardware, as well as different VST/AU instruments, effects and processors, which can be connected to modern DAWs. Many of its devices currently are manufactured in China, company is one of the world leaders in production of high-quality audio devices with good digital part and often exceprional analogue part, to which many other manufacturers have a long way to go, wherein it sets optimal prices for its equipment and makes it one of the best goods in value/price ratio terms.

OLYMPUS PEN mini E-PM2 – compact mirrorless camera with 16.05 MP MFT sensor

OLYMPUS PEN mini E-PM2 camera variations

Today we will talk about compact mirrorless camera OLYMPUS PEN mini E-PM2 with 16.05 MP Live MOS 4/3″ sensor – the same, as used in top level Olympus OMD E-M5, and Micro Four Thirds mount for interchangeable lenses. It makes photos with 4608 x 3456 pixels maximal resolution and saves them in JPEG, RAW ( with 12 bits per channel precision and lossless compression ), RAW+JPEG and MPO; records video in Full HD 1920 x 1080 30p, HD 1280 x 720 30p and SD 640 x 480 30 modes, saving it in MOV ( with MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 image encoding ) or AVI ( Motion JPEG ) with sound recording in WAVE Stereo Linear PCM 16 bits and 48 kHz, recorded via built-in or external microphones. ISO levels are in 200 – 25600 range, color spaces are sRGB and AdobeRGB. Image stabilization is via sensor shifting, pictures are processed by TruePic VI graphical engine; it has no built-in flash and viewfinder, there is ability to attach external ones, its 3″ touch LCD screen has 460 K dots resolution.

Photo camera OLYMPUS PEN mini E-PM2 ( top сверху ) — Photo camera OLYMPUS PEN mini E-PM2 ( top view )

Camera saves photos and video on SD, SDHC, SDXC ( UHS-I ), Eye-Fi and Flash Air flash memory cards; it can be controlled remotely. OLYMPUS PEN mini E-PM2 supports automatic and manual focus, exposure and diaphragm settings, it can be used for astronomical shooting. It has following connectors : combined USB 2.0/AV output/remote control input, HDMI Micro Type D, Hot Shoe and Accessory Port 2; one charge of Li-ion battery is enough for 360 photos making. Camera sizes are 109.8 ( width ) x 64.2 ( height ) x 33.8 ( depth ) mm and mass is 223 g ( only camera body without lens, memory card and battery ); it can work in 0 – 40 degrees on Celsius range and relative air humidity levels in 30 – 90 % range.

Photo camera OLYMPUS PEN mini E-PM2 ( rear view )

Package contains : OLYMPUS PEN mini E-PM2 camera itself, USB cable for battery charging and data transfers, AV cable, Li-ion battery, recharger, external flash, strap on hand, CD-ROM disk with Olympus Viewer 2/ib software, 1-year warranty card and user’s guide. This is a great camera : Olympus accounted experience of previous camera from this family and made more convenient protruding parts for better grip, made touchscreen, which made it easier to work with camera, and increased amount of shots, that can be taken from one battery charge. From its minuses following can be mentioned : lack of built-in flash, noise on high ISO levels ( it is present in all semi-professional cameras ) and small amount of specialized controls, but this is mainly cavils, than real weaknesses.

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