test

Smartphone sadism continues in this face-off video between the iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S3 from gadget warranty outfit SquareTrade.

After being dropped, drowned, and pounded with various household objects, the lightweight, metal-backed iPhone 5 seems to hold up much better overall than its Android arch-nemesis, but the demonstration is far from scientific. The Galaxy S3 took a serious face shot to its glass screen in the drop test, whereas the iPhone 5 lucked out and bounced off its side edge. … Read more

This week, you finally get to see the results of my high-flying Road Test of the HTC One X! I actually jumped out of a helicopter because we were so sure that this HTC One X commercial, touting its camera features to such an extent that it could be used in a midair fashion shoot, was a ridiculous put-on. You'll see in the segment whether I managed to get the shot, and whether the phone's camera and features performed as advertised.

Special thanks to the folks at GoPro, who helped us set up this shoot and loaned us … Read more

Today might be Friday, September 14, but to PC security companies, it probably feels like Friday the 13th. AV-Test.org's latest regularly published results on home security suites have been released, and the vast majority of the best performing suites slipped a full point or more.

You can read the report at AV-Test's site.

AV-Test looks at three categories in its tests, and scores them each on a six-point scale. Protection gauges how well a suite blocks threats, Repair evaluates how well a suite removes malware, and Usability includes testing for false positives. Eleven points total are required … Read more

We know, we've seen your e-mails. There's something that doesn't feel quite right about buying a beautiful, brand-new piece of technology and then deliberately attempting to destroy it. Granted, it's all in the name of science and helping you make better buying decisions -- and feel more confident that your device can survive the occasional drop, ding, or dunk. But still. We're not sleeping at night.

Enter the Torture Test Giveaway. We're going to give away these "lightly used" devices in whatever condition they happen to have ended up in -- so … Read more

CNET's Always On / Torture Test Giveaway

Official Rules

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Sponsor, Administrator and Prize Provider: CNET, a Division of CBS Interactive, Inc. 235 Second Street, San Francisco, California 94105.

Prize Provider: CNET, Always On … Read more

I met Julie Glick a few months ago with some folks from Ultimate Ears at a Head-Fi meeting in NY. UE was promoting a new set of custom-molded in-ear headphones, the Personal Reference Monitors, which are just now entering full production. In her NYC office, Glick can fully demonstrate these unique headphones, which are not only custom-molded to your ears but fine-tuned, soundwise, to your liking. Ultimate Ears technicians use the frequency curve you create to build your Personal Reference Monitors. I crafted my EQ curve in Glick's office; it was a lot of fun to design my sound. … Read more

TestDisk and PhotoRec from CG Security are freeware utilities bundled together in one portable download. TestDisk is a simple but powerful tool for analyzing and recovering disk partitions, including some unusual selections such as Xbox and Mac partitions. PhotoRec is designed to recover lost files from your digital camera's memory or any similar memory device. It can handle most memory types, including USB, CompactFlash, MMC, and SmartMedia as well as optical disks and your hard drives. Though PhotoRec and TestDisk are bundled, they're separate utilities with separate executables.

PhotoRec is designed to be totally safe to use, and … Read more

The video below, part of which was recorded from an iPhone free-falling 1,000 feet after being dropped by a BASE jumper in a wingsuit, is at least three things: link bait, a promotional stunt, and pretty damn cool.

G-Form, the maker of smartphone and tablet cases with a penchant for torturing devices with drops from great heights, sought to outdo itself with this stunt.… Read more

At 10:30 in the morning a few weeks ago I hopped into a plain white van, a mysterious briefcase carefully laid out on the passenger's seat abuzz with phones.

Into the afternoon, the driver answered my probing questions about long hours on the road, awkward run-ins with the cops, and flashed guns. This was no police surveillance ride along; my driver was merely sharing a day in the life of an independent cell phone network tester.

Meet RootMetrics A few miles away from Microsoft, a small company called RootMetrics (formerly Root Wireless) sends out a tiny squadron of … Read more