The HTC One X+ Hides Its Horsepower

The HTC One+ hides a lot of computing power in an undistinguished case.

The HTC X+ isn't much to look at. It's another rectangular smartphone with a nice soft touch exterior. But it is what is known in automotive parlance as a “sandbagger.”

The undistinguished case hides an NVIDIA Tegra 3 processing chip, a 1.7 GHz quad-core processor, which means if there were a computing drag race, this phone would be an odds-on favorite.

You may wonder who needs that much processing power. Nobody, really. Just like no one needs a 600-horsepower muscle car. Still, there are people who want them.

There are places where that kind of chip speed comes in han dy â€" most prominently in gaming. It means that pictures render faster and more accurately with more detail. There is even a site for games that are made specifically to work with Tegra-powered devices, called the TegraZone.

Not that you have to be a gamer to use the phone. It has a 4.7-inch LCD screen that produces a sharp picture, and it runs the Android operating systems Jellybean 4.1, which means it has Near Field Communications capabilities.

Having NFC means you can transfer files to other NFC devices â€" supposedly with a tap. In practice the transfers were spotty. It took a long time to share photos across devices, and the transfer often failed.

Of course, the phone has all the advantages of Android OS devices, which includes easy connection to free Google services and to YouTube

The phone comes with Bluetooth aptX, which lets you send and receive higher fidelity sound, and Wi-Fi and DLNA, which should ease connecting your phone to a TV or com puter.

The camera is eight megapixels with an F2 aperture, which means it is better in low light than most phone cameras. It also has Beats Audio built in, which improves music fidelity without the oppressively bass heavy found in some Beats products.

The HTC One X+ is available through AT&T for $200 with a two-year contract.

The dockBoss Rescues Old Music Docks

The dockBoss air is a Bluetooth receiver that clips on the old Apple 30-pin connector.

Since new Apple products have been equipped with the smaller Lightning connector, buying a new device also means replacing many accessories that have the old, wider connectors. One of the most costly to replace is the music dock, which can cost from around $100 to thousands of dollars.

But a simple little piece of hardware about the size of an iPod Shuffle can rescue your old music dock from the scrapheap.

Called the dockBoss Air, it is a Bluetooth receiver that clips on the old Apple 30-pin connector. Once it is in place, you can connect your iPhones, iPads and iPods wirelessly - along with Android devices and anything else with Bluetooth.

The dockBoss couldn't be easier to use. In a test it was attached to a connector of a small music dock; a blue light on top showed that it had power. It paired with an iPhone almost instantly, and played flawlessly.

The $35 dongle is available through the Web site of the manufacturer, CableJive. While $35 may not seem cheap, it is less than the price for Apple's adapter cable. And the little plastic rectangle is far more elegant.

Q&A: Filling Your iPhone\'s E-Wallet

Q.

How exactly does this Passbook app work on the new iPhone?

A.

Passbook is Apple's version of an electronic wallet. It can be used for storing things like digital boarding passes sent by your airline, customer loyalty cards from stores like Target, Walgreen's and Starbucks, coupons and advance movie tickets from sites like Fandango. The Passbook app works on iOS 6 for iPhone and the iPod Touch, but is not currently available for the iPad.

When you visit a Passbook-friendly establishment, the pass stored in the app can be scanned by the employee and you can get onto the plane, into the theater or save some money on drugstore purchases. If you have the phone's location services turned on and it senses you are near a store that you have set up to use with Passbook, the card will even appear on your lock screen, ready to go.

If you have opened the Passbook app at least once, you have probably seen a screen t hat invites you to download some Passbook-compatible apps from the App Store. If you find one you can use, download it to your phone. You can also add passes to Passbook from store Web sites or those that have been sent by mail or Apple's iMessage service.

Once you get some passes in there, open the Passbook app and tap the one you want to use. (The independent site, Apps For Passbook, also keeps a running log of what is out there. Apple has its own guide to using Passbook. Reports from users testing a software update to iOS 6 say that Apple is trying to make Passbook easier to understand for those just starting out with it, so things may get better soon.

The Next Best Thing to a Flux Capacitor

Mattel's hover board, a realistic prop replica from “Back to the Future II,” makes whooshing sounds when tilted or turned.

The hover board, which Marty McFly maneuvered with great flair in “Back to the Future II” and which subsequently landed on the must-have Christmas list in 1989 for hundreds of children, has finally arrived, thanks to Mattel.

The board is really only a realistic prop replica, down to the Mattel logo, the flashy ‘80s graphics and the peg hole for handlebars (if you will recall from the movie, Marty borrowed it from a girl who was using it as a hover scooter). Matte l even reproduced the sounds the hover board made, taking them from the movie's soundtrack.

At $130, it doesn't actually fly, of course, but it does glide a short distance over smooth surfaces. (And remember, the hover board doesn't work on water.)

Mattel developed the board with advice from several Hollywood insiders, including Bob Gale, the co-producer and co-writer of the movie, and the movie's special effects supervisor, Michael Lantieri.

Being a gadget from the future, the hover board does not have an on switch; you just move it to power it up. Then it begins to hum, and will make whooshing sounds when tilted or turned. Hold it vertically - tucked under your arm, for instance - and it will power down.

When the hover board arrived in the mail, my colleagues were eager to see it, especially after I put the batteries in and powered it up. My older co-workers said it sounded like a tired vacuum cleaner and were disappointed that it didn't lift me off the ground. But the younger ones, presumably the ones who wished for a hover board back in 1989, were impressed, even though the design was missing the lenticular stickers that made the board sparkle in the movie.

The hover board is available in limited quantities only at MattyCollector.com, Mattel's Web site for adult collectors. It comes with a display stand, which is poorly designed and doesn't hold the board well. But this is one prop that won't stay mounted for long.

Tip of the Week: Webmail Attachments Made Easy

The “Attach a file” button in the window of your open Web-based mail message may make it seem like you have to navigate around your hard drive to find the file you want to send, but appearances might be deceiving.

In some Web browsers, both Yahoo Mail and Google's Gmail allow you to drag files from your computer's desktop right into the message window to upload them as file attachments. Yahoo has additional information on attachment management and Google has an illustrated example for Gmail.

An iPad Megaphone for Louder Sound

The Amplifiear clips to an iPad and works like a megaphone to increase apparent volume from the tablet's tiny speaker.

Generally, the way to get louder sound out of your iPad is to buy a music dock, which is a speaker and amplifier combination that typically costs around $100 or more.

But a clever plastic clip-on device called the Amplifiear (Get it? Amplifier? Amplify ear? iEar?) increases your iPad's volume, if not its sound quality, for $25.

The device, available online, is essentially a modern megaphone. It increases the volume in the same way that cupping your hands around your mouth when you yell does. (A competing product from Matek is available online for $7, but I haven't tried it).

The Amplifiear has a little more style then cupped hands. The ABS plastic device looks a bit like a single Mickey Mouse ear that latches over the edge of your iPad redirecting sound from the speaker on the back around to the front. It is available in the six colors matched to the Apple Smart Covers: blue, orange, green, red, white, black.

The company claims that the device can increase volume by 10 decibels. Using a hobbyist sound meter, I counted 6 decibels, which is still a significant difference.

While it increased the apparent volume level, it particularly seems to boost the higher end of the frequency range, meaning whatever sparse bass you were getting out of your iPad will be overwhelmed. The effect can be a bit harsh.

Q&A: Getting YouTube on the TV Screen

Q.

How do you play YouTube videos on TV if you don't have an iPad or an Apple TV?

A.

Getting YouTube to play on the TV depends on the hardware you have. If you have a computer, you can connect it to the TV with compatible audio-video cables (just like you would a DVD player) and then switch the display input source on the TV to the computer. You can then select and play the YouTube videos on the computer and watch on the connected TV screen.

The exact cables you need for this depend on what connections are on your TV and computer. If you have fairly new devices, you might be able to link the computer to the TV with an HDMI cable. For older gear, VGA and audio cables can connect the two, as long as your computer's video card can handle it. To see what you need, check the audio and video ports on the back of both the TV and the computer and buy matching cables.

YouTube is so popular that it has turned up on a number of other devices besides the Apple TV. Some TiVo video recorders offer a built-in YouTube channel, as does the Boxee Box and Google TV devices, among many others.