AIVC (Alice) Review

AIVC or "Alice" as she's more commonly known, is a great virtual assistant app. I don't have an Iphone, but I have tried out Siri on a friends phone, and in a shop, and it impressed me. Alice on the other hand, impressed me more. Alice does everything Siri does, but in a more personal way. If, for instance, you said to Siri; "You're beautiful," she'd say; "Do not understand the term 'you're beautiful' would you like to search the web?" Alice on the other hand said; "thank you Zac, I find you attractive too," she basically gives you more personal replies. Anyway, on with the review!

OK let's start with features. First off Alice has Facebook capabilities, and Twitter will be added pretty soon. Look at the following pictures, for more info on what Alice does.

Geography 

Ask Alice questions about places, and she answers you quickly, and accurately.

Weather

She also gives you weather information based on your location. Her verbal response to "Do I need sunglasses today?" was;
"If you want look cool Zac, but you won't actually need them."
Responses for weather is super fast, and surprisingly accurate.

Status

Ask Alice about your phone's status, and she'll tell you.

Organize

Alice can organize appointments for you, and sync them with your Google Calendar.

Messaging

Dictate your text messages, and Alice will send them for you. This also works with email.

Humor

Ask Alice a silly question, she'll give you a silly, hilarious answer.

Travel

Alice can give you traveling times on places you want to go to.

Navigation

Ask Alice where the nearest Mc Donald's is, and she'll not only tell you, but help you get there using Google Navigation.




















These are just some of the features available with Alice. She has regular updates, adding new features, and making the old ones even faster. Alice is available in a free "lite" version, with limited features, and the "pro" version with everything listed above.

After five months of use, I give Alice a 9.5/10.


Alice "Lite" Version

Alice "Pro" Version

Nova Launcher Review

Nova Launcher

One of the main selling points of Android is customization, and one of my favorite customization tools is Custom Launchers. I've tried quite a few, but this is the best so far. Nova Launcher gives you plenty of customization options, and is slick and fast. Here are some of the best features, along with some screenshots from my very own SII.

Nova offers some lovely screen transitions as you can see here. I'm quite a big fan of the default TouchWiz launcher, but one thing that does disappoint me about it, is the lackluster transitions. The transitions available from Nova on the other hand, are slick, and beautiful.

The App Draw in Nova is another thing of beauty. It arranges all of your apps into alphabetical order, (something TouchWiz doesn't do) gives you slick transitions, and makes it easy to copy them to your home screen. Another great feature is being able to select widgets from the App Draw. Most custom launchers require you to root your device, before being able to place widgets from the App Draw. Nova doesn't, meaning that my non-rooted SII that isn't running any custom ROM's, can use this handy feature. The Google Play Store can be easily accessed from the drop-down menu in the top-right corner.









The Dock and Folder system in Nova is another great feature. The Dock has five icons, and can have up to five pages! You can also place folders in the dock. This is handy if you want to put all of your messaging and social apps in the dock. As you can see, I have a lot of those! (Although it seems I put the same app in there twice... Oops.)














Nova gives you a plethora of settings, making it easy to get everything just the way you want it. I've used a lot of custom launchers since I got my SII in April, and usually I end up going back to TouchWiz. This time though, I think I may just stick with Nova.















Widgets can be placed and re-sized with ease. Nova overrides a widgets default properties, meaning you really can re-size any widget, even the ones that came with the device.

















Overall I give Nova 8.5/10 and I recommend it if you're looking for a replacement launcher. Nova is available on Google Play. There is a free lite version, which I'm currently using, and a prime version available for purchase.

Nova Lite

Nova Prime

Extended Battery [Updated]

I absolutely love my Galaxy SII, and wouldn't trade it for anything [Not even a Bacon Sandwich] So I like it a lot. I do have one niggle though. The battery life is awful, sometimes I have to charge it twice a day. Well, let me present you with the answer to the problem. The official Samsung Galaxy SII GT-I9100 extended battery pack. Read on for a full review.

The standard SII battery is a 1,650 MaH LI-Ion battery, and usually gives you about a days use. But for someone who gets lots of emails, uses Twitter, Google Plus and Instagram, and plays lots of games and music, it only lasts for about four hours. That clearly isn't enough. Samsung obviously understand this, why else would they make an extended battery?

The extended battery is a 2,000 MaH Li-Ion battery, and is about 25% thicker than the original. This requires a new backplate for the battery to fit under. When you install the new battery, you do notice a slight weight and size difference. It doesn't take long to get used to though, it only took me a few days. In terms of design, all the battery pack really does is make the phone flat. The whole phone is made to be the same thickness as the bulge at the bottom. But how much of a difference does it make?

Most of the time, I get about 15, or 16 hours of use. That's 15 hours of Twitter, Interneting, and gaming. If you combine this battery with Juice Defender, then you get about 18 hours out of it. Of course, not everybody uses their SII as much as I do, so you'll probably get more life our of it. I've heard that some users have gotten 48 hours light usage.

So, if your SII is running out of juice far to quickly, I suggest you buy this battery. You also gain the advantage of having two batteries. I keep both charged, and use one as a back-up for if I'm out the whole day. Please remember that it takes a few weeks for a battery to reach its potential, so the battery life won't be noticeably different straight away. I do hope this review is of help.  

Here's a YouTube video showing the battery in more detail.

If you want to buy the extended battery, use the following links:

Galaxy SII Black

Galaxy SII White

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