Android News and Tips
The world’s thinnest smartphone title has become a thorny affair in recent years, as new contenders pop up out of nowhere once every few weeks. Most of the time, no-name Chinese manufacturers are behind these designs that defy gravity common sense, and the goal is to score free publicity for future products with the better
And just like that, LG managed to overshadow arch-rival Samsung for a change. Unfortunately, product confusion and brand dilution aren’t departments one would want to “prevail” in, especially when an exceedingly dense mid to high-end roster could generate serious market cannibalization issues. Even at first glance, there’s plenty to underline the “standard” G4’s superiority over
The beauty of Android-based hardware variety and manufacturer competition lies mainly in the numerous price points currently covered by phones, tablets and even wearables that can be described as respectable at the very least. Sure, the absolute best handhelds of today will still set you back north of $600, $700, sometimes $800 free of carrier
After (hopefully) helping you better understand the “deal” with LG’s far too similar mid-range G4 derivations, our mission of clarifying convoluted Android smartphone families enters a new phase. Today, we’re all about praising the Samsung Galaxy A roster’s full-metal diversity. Yes, for once, you’ll see us endorse so-called “brand dilution” instead of bitching and complaining.
Quad HD handheld display resolution is overkill, and everybody knows that. Including the device manufacturers trying so hard to sell the “feature” as something that’s not – useful and groundbreaking. Well, yeah, sure, it’s innovative and all on paper, but the end consumer needs a magnifying glass to tell the difference between 1,920 x 1,080
According to official Android distribution numbers harvested by Google during the week leading to May 4, a measly 9.7 percent of all devices with the world’s most popular mobile OS inside run 5.0 or 5.1 Lollipop. That’s certainly disappointing, given 5.0 source code was freely disseminated back in early November 2014 and Android M’s “final”
Contracts are so 2010. Nowadays, it’s all about the unlocked and prepaid gear. It’s just far more convenient that way, not to mention oftentimes cheaper, at least over the long haul. T-Mobile is climbing the US carrier (or rather “Uncarrier”) ranks thanks to its lauded no-contract Value Plans, Motorola has reclaimed a lot of its
TGIF, everybody! Another exhausting work week is almost behind us, so it’s time to fire up the YouTube cat videos, catch up on all the entertainment news you feared would distract you from your strenuous business tasks, and… spend some of that hard-earned cash. Otherwise, what’s the point of busting your hump day in and
It’s odd, but while a Benjamin can buy a pretty well-balanced tablet from a few manufacturers everyone’s heard of, finding a solid ultra-low-cost Android smartphone is still tricky business. Sure, there’s always the prepaid route, not to mention the possibility of signing two-year contracts to slash prices north of $500 to sub-$100. But it goes
Seeing as how the race to the bottom is heating up by the day as far as Android smartphone retail costs are concerned, a refresh of our best sub-$100 prepaid device list from April 2014 was probably long overdue. To make that abundantly clear, just one member of last year’s magnificent low-cost seven made the
With back to school season behind us and Black Friday and Cyber Monday a little ways down the road, this may feel like hardly the best time to make a new Android purchase. Yet low-cost gear tends to be fairly attractive all year round in this day and age, and there’s something about “off-season” buying
It takes a good bit of courage, as well as a slight dose of desperation, to knowingly turn a blind eye to the specific guidelines set by your idol, mentor and forerunner, to whom you basically owe everything. “No one is going to buy a phone you can’t get your hand around” said Steve Jobs
Whether you consider them to be in poor taste, a passing fad or a key element of today’s pop culture, selfies are unquestionably at the peak of their popularity. The most retweeted image ever is a self-portrait photograph of a cluster of celebrities, the Oxford English Dictionary awarded the term, which wasn’t previously listed in
Things just got real. The start of the new school year is less than a week away, so it’s high time you stopped daydreaming about the good old early days of summer. But September 4 doesn’t have to be a time of grief and sorrow. Not entirely. You might as well embrace the beginning of
Well, that sure didn’t take long. The bizarre Nokia X, technically built on an underlying layer of Android code but really made to resemble a Windows Phone on the software front without actually running WP, is merely four months old. Five, if we count the timing of its formal introduction rather than the commercial launch.
Defying logic, common sense and, perhaps least important, tech traditions, Nokia took the wraps off an X follow-up aptly named X2 just five months after the first-gen was introduced. Even nuttier, the upgraded Android-based handheld is up for grabs in “in select countries globally”, which means it started selling less than 100 days on the
More than “true” octa-core power, 3D effects, fingerprint recognition and even Quad HD screen resolution, 64-bit processors are the next must-have feature of high-end smartphones. Make that low-end too, as it appears one of Samsung’s first devices to support the evolved architecture, maybe the absolute first, will be a fairly lackluster SM-G510F. The model number
The sweet, sweet Xperia G rumors floating around a while ago never materialized and so technically Sony is yet to deliver a legitimate Moto G rival. But the Japanese may target Motorola’s other low-cost enchilada before long with a handheld known merely by a mysterious combination of letters and numbers. Meet the D2403, benchmarked over
Made to last, priced for all. That’s how Motorola teased its latest entry-level, low-cost Android effort a little while back, delivering roughly 24 hours ago when the Moto E broke cover. Obviously, it’s way too early to rate E’s durability and, with no Kevlar backing or “premium” build materials apparent, it’s entirely possible the “made
Focused until not long ago exclusively on multipurpose gadgets like Transformer Pad tablet/laptop hybrids or 2-in-1 phone-cum-slate PadFones, Asus has inaugurated back in January a more conventional handheld line. Dubbed Zenfone, the smartphone family included three low-cost 4, 5 and 6-inch models powered by Intel Atom processors and meant primarily for emerging markets. Priced at