Sony Xperia GB are teaming up with Ed Stafford and his crew of intrepid explorers to take the Xperia Z1, the world's best camera in a waterproof smartphone, to four Hidden Wonders of the World, testing its capabilities to the limit. Follow them as they post clues along the way and locate the Xperia Z1 for your chance to win a trip to one of our Hidden Wonders. This sounds like an excellent adventire and you can discover more, along with details of how to enter here.
It seems that Apple have been taking a lot of digs lately, with many saying they have not been innovating. With the recent launch of their new iPhone 5c, maybe they got their inspiration from the funky rubber footwear we all love so much. That said, even if their inspiration did come from Crocs, the colours certainly are vibrant.
Here at Geekanoids, we were lucky enough to get our hands on an iPhone 5c today, in the striking green colour. You can see us unbox it here, in all its glory. Despite the back casement being plastic, it certainly does not feel cheap. Apple did their research and engineered the back from quality materials, that are solid in the hand, with no creaking or flex.
The screen, performance & overall user experience have been great so far. It is too early to comment on battery life with such a new model. There are plenty of charging options available out there today, so even if your 5c does run out of juice midway through the day, it is often not an issue. During my first day testing, I did find the back casing get a little warm though. This may be the battery or the processor, I am not sure at this stage.
Button placement and ports seem pretty much the same as last years iPhone 5, with the only noticeable change being along the bottom edge where the microphone, speaker, headphone jack & lightning connector can be found. The tiny drilled holes are finished to perfection though. Apple really have done a stellar job.
If you are as excited as we are here at Geekanoids about this new smartphone from Apple and really eager to get your hands on one, the awesome people at MobileFun are giving away an unlocked 16GB iPhone 5c … with a choice of colours for the winner. The giveaway is very easy to enter and can be found here. Give it a go, you never know your luck !
Over the past few weeks, we have seen a growing trend in the number of emails here at Geekanoids HQ asking why we don't do big giveaways. Many of them citing other channels that give away smartphones, tablets & laptops on a semi-regular basis. Wherever possible, all emails get a response, but a couple asked us to make a video response. Whilst this subject does not really warrant a video, we are happy to cover the subject here.
From the outset, the Geekanoids Channel was put together to share valuable information about the latest technology to hit the scene. The primary goal of most videos is to help prospective buyers make an informed purchasing decision. There is nothing worse than buying a piece of tech, only to find it either under-delivers or does not have the features you were expecting. We hope that the videos that appear on the channel help give you the info you need.
As Geekanoids grew, it became possible for us to fund our own smaller giveaways and also publish sponsored videos whereby the prize was supplied to us. When we run these videos it is for the sole purspose of giving back to you, the viewers. It is our way of appreciating you watching and more importantly being part of our community. Think of it as an 'exclusive club' where you are all really appreciated. In fact just recently, with some hard behind-the-scenes work, we managed to secure three new sponsors, so we are able to share some really nice products with more of you.
When you see channels doing large giveaways, of course, enter, you would be silly not too. If you win a nice new smartphone then congratulations. We would even enter these on occasion, in the hope we would win and be able to give the prize away to someone who has supported Geekanoids. What I would be wary of though is channels that do this purely to build viewers & subscribers. The reason I mention this is that we still live in an online society where numbers matter. When approaching PR companies for products, the often look at the number, rather than the community & engagement the channel offers. If you see a channel that is just running big giveaways time after time, just bookmark them as such, enter & move on (oh and good luck).
There are some exceptions to this, for example TechnoBuffalo run regular giveaways. These are sponsored though and their other content speaks for itself, backing up that they are a trusted source of information.
In closing, the question still remains unanswered… why don't Geekanoids run big giveaways. Well, it is not to say that we never will. If the opportunity arises to give away a nice sponsor prize that will perhaps kickstart a budding video producers career, that would be epic and we would jump on it. However, for the timebeing, we are happy with where the channel is. With previous, current & future giveaways, we have helped so many people with YouTube related products and will continue along that path as it is truer to our overall vision of our community.
Over on the Geekanoids Channel it has been an exciting week. Seven days, with a new giveaway every single day. My way of saying thank you to all my viewers & readers.
Day three saw some awesome prizes courtesy of Incipio and it gives me great pleasure announcing the three winners here.
The results of the Geek Competition were announced earlier today. It now gives us great pleasure to share the three finalists with you here. Click through to see their channels & of course subscribe if you like what you see (I am sure you will). A big thank you to all the companies involved in supplying prizes too.
First Runner-up is houlker199 who wins a Belkin Tri-Fold Folio & PowerPack 4000 (thanks to Belkin).
Second Runner-up is TechMeOut who wins a Belkin Tri-Fold Folio & PowerPack 4000 (thanks to Belkin).
The Grand Final Winner is TechnologyGadgets who wins the following;
Blackberry Curve 9380 (thanks to Blackberry UK).
Editors Keys SL150 Mic & FCPX Keyboard (thanks to Editors Keys).
White Sennheiser HD228 Headphones (thanks to Purely Gadgets).
Belkin Conserve Surge Protector (thanks to Belkin).
Over the past three months we have been running a very cool competition. Giving viewers the chance to make a video on a particular theme each month, with a winner selected in each round to earn their place in the final.
I would like to personally thank everyone who entered. It has been a great pleasure watching all your videos, all of which were entertaining in their own individual way. In a way, it is a shame that there can only be three grand final entries. If you were not selected, do not worry, there will be plenty more opportunities in the future… keep making videos… and keep enjoying what you do.
Well, the time has come now. The video below reveals the best from round three, followed by the three videos in the Grand Final and of course the overall winner. I won't spoil anything in this text, other than to say congratulations to the prize winners. There will be a further post later, showing all three finalist videos for you to enjoy.
Back on the 20th July we posted a video review of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 (see video below). This superb collection of applications really does deliver a well rounded package to give the creative designer some very powerful & intuitive tools. Please do check out the video & the Corel website.
In the video, we also gave viewers the chance to win one of three CorelDRAW packages. With so many entries, I would like to personally thank everyone who took part.
The winners are detailed below, congratulations go out to;
@TekCrazy7
@5bobert2
@geogant
**THE GIVEAWAY ELEMENT OF THIS IS NOW CLOSED**
You all know me by now… one of the first things I do when I get a new laptop is to put some sort of case on it. With the elegance of Apple design, it is always nice if I can achieve this without too much bulk being added. For an example of how this can be acheived, check out my review below of the Speck SeeThru Case.
Every day this week I will be randomly selecting one winner, who will get to choose a Speck SeeThru case of their choice from the selection below. This giveaway will run from Monday 30th January 2012 at 1am GMT through to 5th February 2012 at midnight GMT. I will randomly select the winner the following day, with the last winner being announced on the 6th Feb. You can enter as many times as you want, max once per day. Any age is welcome to enter & available worldwide.
All you need to do to enter is copy & paste the message below into a tweet, or click THIS LINK & tweet out the resulting message.
RT Check @speckproducts http://bit.ly/speckp & sub to @geekanoids http://bit.ly/YTgeek for a chance to win a SeeThru Case every day #GeekSP
The winner will be able to choose from the following prizes (subject to stock).
Geekanoids 10,000 Subscriber Verbatim Giveaway. To celebrate reaching 10,000 subscribers, Verbatim kindly donated a media pack contain blank CD, DVD and BluRay disks. In this video I randomly select one lucky subscriber to receive the media pack.
Thank you to everyone for your continued support. I hope you enjoy watching my video content.
Supplied & Sponsored by: Verbatim Europe