Virtual checkups: The doctor will see you now…online
“DO you sleep on your side? That side where you have the rashes on your face?” Doc Claire…
Poco X3 Pro: Hand of the king
IN the HBO series Game of Thrones, the Hand of the King (or Queen), is the most powerful…
Olympic gold fever
IT has been a stressful week of thunderstorms, floods, earthquakes, the threat of another Taal eruption, the Delta…
TikTok encourages users to #CreateKindness
For a generation who has to deal with the toxicity of social media, hateful comments and cyberbullying every single day, can we really blame them for getting easily offended?
Switching sides, like changing SIMS
Besides being smartphone brands, what does Cherry Mobile, Samsung, Motorola, Lenovo, Vivo and Oppo all have in common?…
A budget leap to 5G
WHEN realme contacted me about reviewing another phone, I thought it was going to be the realme 8i.…
Let there be light—in living color
IN the beginning, there was darkness—and then you’d start flicking the light switch again and again—as you head-bang,…
Huawei MateBook X Pro (2021) for pros on the go
IF you ask me if the Huawei MateBook X Pro is a great Windows alternative to the MacBook…
Economy of ‘nXscale’
The Philippines has been ranked as one of the best outsourcing countries in the world with a talent…
Practical applications emerge as 5G sites increase
In our last column, we talked about how the release of the Xiaomi POCO M3 5G will usher…
Democratization of 5G smartphones
LAST April, as part of its big 5G push, Smart Communications introduced Unli 5G, its most aggressive offer…
Cleft care technology
According to statistics, it is estimated that worldwide a child is born with cleft every 3 minutes—or about…
Huawei FreeBuds 4i: ANC for less
IF we are to believe the rumors, June is going to be an exciting month for Huawei as…
Making 8 great?
Logomania, the famous shouty logo trend from the 1990s, is back with a vengeance. From high-end brands, like…
Investing in people-first start-ups
IN 1996, Renato and Babie Sio established Sanitary Care Products Asia Inc. (SCPA) with the noble goal of…
One month after: Redmi Note 10
On the back, you’ll find a rectangular camera module that houses its quad-camera stack that’s tucked neatly on…
Setting a higher standard for value
TEN weeks—that’s the lifespan of the average iPhone before it gets damaged, according to a poll conducted by…
Your credit is good
DESPITE the economic devastation brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Philippine smartphone market ended the year strong…
Buzzwords and buzzkill: Why MSMEs need continuity planning
Cloud computing and data science have been buzzwords in the IT and business fields in the Philippines for…
Your credit is good
DESPITE the economic devastation brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Philippine smartphone market ended the year strong…
Buzzwords and buzzkill: Why MSMEs need continuity planning
Cloud computing and data science have been buzzwords in the IT and business fields in the Philippines for…
Promises, compromises… welcome to the ECQverse
AND just like that, we are back on lockdown. It’s been a year since the government implemented the…
Fights, camera, action: Getting into the streaming game
THE other day, I somehow got redirected to the Facebook Gaming page. No, I wasn’t searching for “sando…
Are cloud kitchens the future of restaurants?
Over 110,000 eating and drinking establishments closed in the US due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to an…
In tech we trust
LAST week, the GSMA hosted the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Shanghai, one of the first in-person technology…
The major has gone wireless
FROM Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Slash, Alice Cooper, Oasis and Gorillaz, to Justin Timberlake, Kendrick Lamar, Lana Del…
Jobs on the rise
LAST year, about 4.5 million Filipinos became unemployed as the country suffered one of the worst job crisis…
Pictures and video speak more than words
IN 2021, pictures, video, and audio will speak more than words—this was one of the predictions shared by…
Rise of the pandemic babies
DURING the last 12.12 sale, Shopee sold a record-breaking 12 million items in the first 24 minutes and…
Out of paper but never out of style
ONE of the first things I had to learn when I started out as an encoder for the…
Speed of the future
IF you are in the market for a 5G phone, getting one on a postpaid plan is still…
From Yaya to Google, how to ‘smarten up’ your home
LIKE many 1980s kids, I grew up enjoying the benefits of having a “voice-activated assistant”—even though smart homes,…
Starting 2021 right
I ASKED my Facebook friends how they’d describe 2020 in one word, and the answers I got were:…
Gift Guide Part 3: Work-from-home essentials
ON December 8, the names Margaret Keenan and May Parsons became etched in history as UK marked “V-day,”…
Christmas Gift Guide 2: For the real fans
BARELY two years after entering the Philippine market, realme has claimed the No. 1 spot in the country’s…
Haul out the holly for the most digital holiday season
By the time you are reading this, there will only be 27 days left before Christmas. How are…
Tip for PHL start-ups: Look to the cloud
THE global Covid-19 pandemic has preyed on the elderly and people with non-communicable diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular…
Watch and learn
IF there’s one thing I learned from using the Huawei Watch Fit from the last few weeks, it’s…
Lucky 7 or Strike?
FOR gamers who’ve played Final Fantasy 7, I’m pretty sure you remember that one special Easter Egg status,…
Smartphones—next with Antibac?
THAT light “plop” may not be the scariest sound to hear when you drop your phone, but it…
Realizations from Covid-19
THE other day, I went to the mall to get a haircut from one of those popular salons.…
Nowhere to go but app: How Viber spurred digital ‘bayanihan’
IN the old days, bayanihan was often depicted by an image of several people carrying a nipa hut…
The Cat(6) is out of the bag
A FEW weeks ago, actress Liza Soberano made the headlines when she complained about her Internet service. And…
U.P.D.A.T.E.: Protecting your online identity
JUST because of the insane amounts we spend on our smartphones and PCs, most of us like to…
Return of the Poco
WHEN Poco launched in 2018, it disrupted the market with the Poco F1, receiving rave reviews and was…
Business unusual: Cyber threats amid the pandemic
I FIRST heard about Zoom at a Logitech Rally event I attended last year. Back then, I never…
Budget gadgets: Lower price but at what compromise?
BUYING a new gadget these days may be the least of our priorities, but for those who need…
Retro effect: Nokia 5310 redux
WHEN Nokia made its comeback in 2017, it also brought an old classic back to life—the equally iconic…
Budget gadgets: Xiaomi Redmi 9 series
FOR our regular readers, you might have noticed that I mostly review flagship and midrange devices, but because…
Smart 5G lives
WELL, that was fast. During President Duterte’s fifth State of the Nation Address, one of the most quoted…
Symphony of distraction
“The Philippines is separated by 7,000 islands, and [Filipinos] speak about 187 languages, but the one thing we…
SuperZoom at super value, realme takes a shot at the flagship market
IN the first half of the year, realme Philippines released six smartphones, a smartwatch, fitness band, TWS earphones…
Online teaching and dealing with the unemployment pandemic
AS I write this on a Tuesday afternoon, it’s been 113 days, 2,728 hours, 163,712 minutes and 9,822,720…
The myths and benefits of wireless charging
EVER since Apple announced the wireless charging capabilities of the iPhone X and iPhone 8/8Plus in 2017, it’s…
Will blended/distance learning or ‘GOAL’ be the new normal in education?
WHEN I was a student, the start of the school year was a lot like Christmas for me…
Huawei P40 review: 2 months after, same old love
THE other Sunday, I had our car “bac-to-zero-ed.” If you haven’t heard of it, it’s actually an increasingly…
How Hyun Bin ‘crash landed’ on Smart TVC
IT was way back in 2006 when Hyun Bin first caught the fancy of Pinoys via the now-classic…
The good, the bad, and the gimmick
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”—Norman Vincent Peale LAST week, we…
Samsung S20 Ultra: The boss’ baby
WHEN I was just starting out as a researcher, I had a boss who had quite a fascination…
Realme 6i: Stuck in the waiting game
WHETHER you are still in ECQ, GCQ, or MECQ, three things are certain: 1) you’ve probably read the…
The truth about the AppGallery
NO Google, no problem? The absence of the Google services has become that one big caveat when buying…
ECQ Season 3 and cutting the cord: Part 2
PREVIOUSLY on ECQ PH Season 1: At first it was all about alcohol-hunting and panic-buying as many people…
TWS Review: Jabra Elite 75t— all about the bass
HOW many of you saw this post on your social-media feeds? “If you don’t come out of this…
The show must go on: Huawei ‘Zooms’ ahead with P40 Series launch
EVEN without the global pandemic caused by the coronavirus, the past year had already been a tumultuous time…
There’s no safer place than 127.0.0.1
IF it wasn’t for the businesses closing, people losing jobs and the possibility of getting infected by the…
Lockdown 3:16: We are not on a holiday
“JUST stay home.” The message was clear, but the repercussions couldn’t be more complicated. As I wrote last…
The perfect time to panic
I WROTE this on a Wednesday morning, and for the past couple of days, after news of COVID-19…
C3: Too good to be real(me)?
THERE’S a saying, “The first time is a fluke; the second a coincidence, but the third one? It’s…
As COVID-19 kills MWC, Huawei streams launch of APP Gallery, new 5G devices
THE Mobile World Congress, the mobile telecom industry’s largest and most anticipated trade show, was canceled due to…
Are you a Wi-Fi parasite?
FIRST there were the K-dramas—Korean TV series that were either based on historical events and figures, called “sageuk,”…
Sumitomo partners with LEGO to encourage creative learning
IT was supposed to be just another weekday afternoon for the young students of San Joaquin Elementary School…
What 5G means for gamers
WHEN Sibol, the Philippine national eSports team powered by Smart, won the gold medal for Mobile Legends: Bang…
A case of LSS: ‘Awesome screen, awesome camera, long-lasting battery life…’
I WOKE up in the middle of the night from a bad dream (too much Hotel del Luna,…
Start the ’20s with a bang…for your buck
YES, I know it’s already February, but Chinese New Year was just last week and after everything that’s…
Huawei Mate 30 Pro paradox: Perfectly imperfect
SEVENTY-TWO days without GMS (Google Mobile Services), and I feel fine. As I mentioned in part one of…
Reviewing the Google-less Huawei Mate 30 Pro
It’s been described as luxurious and sublime, a camera beast and a powerhouse phone; yet, it’s also been…
TDTW: The Decade That Was
BEFORE there was Baby Yoda, there were the Minions (both cute but resolutely astute). Before “Old Town Road,”…
VSCO-Girls and the Year of TikTok
IF you only know “Tiktok” as that song about getting drunk and wasted, you either live in a…
The do’s and don’ts of regifting
THERE are only four days left until the most festive (and expensive) time of the year. By now…
12 gifts of Christmas (Part 1)
BY the time you read this, it will only be 11 days before Christmas! Have you completed your…
The best smartphone cameras of 2019
THE DxOMark results are in, and unless there’s going to be a surprise contender launching in the last…
From the living room to your hand
Everyone knows TCL as a TV brand (or some other home appliance) but did you know that before…
Data don’t breach
I MIGHT have forgotten my sunblock, but I made sure I had a complete blister pack of paracetamol…
The 11.11 aftermath
BEING in Bali to cover the Veritas Vision Solution Day conference this week might have saved my wallet…
Upgrading your techlife and getting the youth #cyberreadi
IF Christmas is the season for kids, the second week of January is for all the geeks and…
Rethinking the possibilities
THE Huawei Mate 30 series, the latest flagship smartphone series from the global tech giant, is now officially…
Seiko 5 Sports: A journey in time
IF you are an ’80s kid, you probably grew up knowing “Seiko” for three things: the so-called lucky…
Quad camera value kings
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the smartphone industry has never been this exciting, and…
When size (and performance) matters
As if on cue, the doorbell rang, and I knew her ride had arrived. I looked at her…
Tech4All: Bridging the digital divide
WE live in a world where technology has become an inescapable part of our daily lives, from the…
One month after: A star reborn
Nova: noun (astronomy)—In cosmological terms, a Nova is a new star, a bright, young celestial object bursting with…
The As Team
A FEW months ago, Samsung did something I never thought would happen again—and that was create a good…
Wrestlemania comes to Manila
IT’S been a long three years for wrestling fans, but the wait is finally over as the WWE…
Sound never looked this good
I’m obsessed with speakers. Besides collecting Transformers and action figures (currently Marvel Legends), I also have accumulated a…
Smells like ‘T’ spirit
IT used to be that a slight change in temperature and the cooler breeze in the mornings signal…
Do you Note?
WHEN Samsung first launched its Galaxy Note flagship series in 2011, it was actually mocked due to the…
Europe within China
WE went to China and got a glimpse of Europe instead. Our recent trip to Shenzhen, China, had…
No Google, no problem? Huawei unveils its own OS
DONGGUAN, China—Ending months of speculations, Huawei finally revealed HarmonyOS, its much-rumored and talked-about operating system that could replace…
The Smart Act: US vs PHL
DRAMA. Scandal. It’s what makes social media so interesting. Last week a lot of Pinoys lost sleep over…
Taiwan, the land of milk (tea) and IoT
Throughout our school lives, we meet around a hundred different teachers or so, with most of them becoming…