TechTalks Now

If I could credit Samsung with anything, it's making big phones into a fad for the rest of us. The company basically birthed the idea of a phone-tablet hybrid, and if it wasn't for the Note series, Apple might not have even considered bumping the iPhone up to 5.5 inches. (You're welcome, iPhone users.) With that said, Samsung continues to improve the Note series with every new version. The Galaxy Note 5 is no different: it boasts a beautiful screen, powerful innards -- including an extra gigabyte of RAM -- and suite of helpful productivity apps to accompany its super precise stylus, the S Pen. If you haven't considered a mega-sized Android phone until now, the Galaxy Note 5 is the best place to start. It's so good at everything it does, it outshines the rest of the Galaxy family of smartphones. [ Also InfoWorld: Find out which is the   best browser for Android smartphones . | Get a digest of the day's top tech stories in the   InfoWorld Daily newsletter...

There are already plenty of iPhone apps that allow you to make simple adjustments to your photos, such as adding filters and effects, tweaking the color and brightness, etc. But there are few apps designed with professional photographers and artists in mind. That's where Astropad comes in. The full version of Astropad lets you use your iPad as a graphics tablet, and now the company just launched a new version of the app for iPhone too. The new app is called  Astropad Mini , and it's going to cost $4.99 as part of its launch promotion on Thursday while the full price will be $9.99. A graphics tablet is a pressure-sensitive slate that photographers and artists use to easily edit photos on their computers. It allows you to control your computer mouse with a stylus on the tablet so that you can touch up photos with more precision. So, for instance, if you're editing an image in Photoshop, you'd be able to move the cursor to edit intricate details of the photo usin...

Hey you, busy business traveler: Is your favorite airline among the best in the world? If you fly predominantly in the U.S., then the answer is no. This week in Paris, air travel research firm Skytrax unveiled its annual World Airline Awards , ranking the top 100. "Travellers from across the globe take part each year in the world’s largest airline passenger satisfaction survey to decide the award winners," Skytrax says. This year's top airline: Doha-based Qatar Airways. It's the third time in five years that the carrier has landed in the top award category.  If you're looking for U.S.-based airlines, you'll have to skim down to No. 26 on the list to find Virgin America. The carrier won three notable awards: Best Airline in North America     Best Low-Cost Airline in North America Best Airline Staff in North America Curiously, ranking higher than Virgin America this year is Malaysia Airlines. This, you should recall, is the airline th...

by  Ketan Pratap   ,  25 August 20 15 Microsoft has launched the Nokia 222 and Nokia 222 Dual SIM budget phones. Both the smartphones will be available in select markets starting September and will come at $37 (approximately Rs. 2,450) before local taxes and subsidies. The Nokia 222 is the successor to the  Nokia 220 ,  launched  last year. Considering that Microsoft India now  lists  the Nokia 222 Dual SIM, we can expect the company to launch the dual-SIM variant of the feature phone in India soon. Both the new  Nokia 222  and  Nokia 222 Dual SIM  phones come with the same set of specifications except that the latter supports dual-SIM functionality. Both the handset support Micro-SIM cards, and both run Nokia Series 30+ OS. Microsoft touts that the new Nokia 222 and Nokia 222 Dual SIM can offer FM radio playback of up to 45 hours and MP3 playback of up to 50 hours. The handsets also come with a built-in M...