Android Blog News: 2015

[VIDEO] This slick Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge concept could be mistaken for the Samsung Galaxy S6

Watch the video below and tell us: would you have guessed that was a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge if you weren’t told what it was? We don’t blame you if you would, because concept artist Jermaine Smit made sure he stuck to realism for his latest work.

After reports of a work-focused “ Google Glass Enterprise Edition” began swirling around the net, photos of the upcoming headset have finally surfaced thanks to the FCC. The Commission posted a handful of photos in its documentation, showing the device from every angle and even open, exposing all of the device’s (hopefully improved) internal hardware.

According to Google’s latest Platform Distribution numbers for December 2015, Android 6.0 Marshmallow is only running on .5% of Android devices, just a small blip on the radar. For the vast majority of Android users in the world — those that don’t own Nexus devices — the wait for Android 6.0 Marshmallow is an excruciating one.

Earlier today, we told you guys all about rumors of this year’s Samsung Galaxy S7 being joined by a larger sized Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge model. We know the regular S7 would feature a slighter larger 5.2-inch display, while the S7 Edge would be a 5.5-inch curved AMOLED display.

GSMArena and case manufacturer ITSKINS have teamed up again to provide another set of case renders for an upcoming phone. 2016’s top challenger — otherwise known as the Samsung Galaxy S7 — is the device being paraded this time.

The gold plating experts from Vietnam are back again with a new offering. This time, Karalux focused its efforts on BlackBerry's Porsche Design P'9983, launched last year with BlackBerry OS 10.3 on board.

According to a report out of Poland, you might want to start saving up for the Samsung Galaxy S7 you plan on buying next year. If this report is legit, Samsung plans on hiking the price for the Galaxy S7 series. According to Evan Blass (who once upon a time was well-known by his @evleaks Twitter handle), we will see four variations of the manufacturer's flagship model in 2016. They include the Samsung Galaxy S7, Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Plus and the Samsung Galaxy S7 Plus.

We were big fans of the Mountek’s CD slot car mount when we reviewed it a little over 3 years ago. A brilliant way to repurpose your car’s long forgotten CD player, we’ve been using it just about every day since and quite frankly, couldn’t live without it. Since then, the nGroove has undergone a few revisions, with Mountek creating a version that uses magnets to hold your phone in place instead of traditional arms.

The BlackBerry Priv might not have been able to single-handedly kick start the company's hardware sales in the fiscal third quarter. But things should change for the better early next year. BlackBerry's first Android powered slider will soon be available from the largest mobile carrier in the U.S., Verizon, and that can only mean more Priv units will get rung up. The Verizon version of the phone has already cleared the FCC.

If you’re a big mobile gamer, you know that touchscreen controls aren’t always the best. In fact, most of the time they suck. Android Area has a nice deal on a gamepad that connects with your phone and gives you more traditional physical controls.

Just over a couple of weeks after we brought you exclusive Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Plus renders, images showing protective covers for the yet-to-be announced flagship smartphones have leaked online.

Enough of the leaks and the teasing: the Samsung Galaxy A9 is finally here. While the line is positioned at the mid-tier, the Galaxy A9 stretches toward the high-end side of things with its specs.

What do you know - the Marshmallow beta for the Samsung Galaxy S6/S6 edge that was supposed to be exclusive to South Korea, has started rolling out in the UK as well. The TouchWiz-zed Android 6.0 firmware comes in the form of a 1.2GB download and brings quite a few changes.

LG's upcoming G5 flagship smartphone, which has been the subject of some rumors and leaks until now, will come with a dual camera set-up (16MP + 8MP) at the back.

If you aren’t against the idea of going with a year-old smartphone (that can still hold its own and has Marshmallow, to boot) then Amazon has a great deal going. The Nexus 6 (not to be confused with the Huawei-made Nexus 6P) is going for just $249.99 at Amazon. That’ll get you the 32GB model, andadding $50 gets you double that storage.

The Wall Street Journal told us to expect a Samsung Galaxy S7 launch to happen in March 2016, and considering their information is rarely incorrect we’d say it was worth believing. But if you aren’t as trusting, maybe word from one of the carriers who will sell this thing will make you a believer.

Everybody has a fingerprint, but no two are exactly the same. Google’s latest Android commercial tries drive this point home, showing casing a variety of fingerprint puppets in multiple personalities, colors, and sizes.

Motorola made bold claims earlier this year when they said their new smartphone, the Motorola DROID Turbo 2, featured a shatter-proof display. Many YouTubers took this as a challenge, putting the device through extreme stress tests most other devices would never survive. But time and time again, no matter how hard people come at the Motorola DROID Turbo 2, the device just wont crack.

Motorola is surely hard at work on their flagship products for 2016, and although the company typically waits until mid-late summer to dish out details we may already have our first look at one of their ideas.

NVIDIA wants you to know that Marshmallow for the SHIELD Tablet K1 is nearly ready, and they’ve done so with a nice teaser showing the goods off. Will O’Neil — whom you may remember from when TechTV was still a thing — takes us through the update, which doesn’t depart far from Marshmallow’s natural kit but does add a couple of new NVIDIA-specific things.

New Samsung Galaxy S7 rumors are always interesting, and today brings forth some very big expectations. The first comes out of the Wall Street Journal, who has heard from sources that Samsung is looking to go with pressure sensitive displays for their 2016 flagship.

Battery life is a common problem in smartphones today. Despite the complaints from users, phones keep getting thinner, and batteries keep getting smaller. Every once in a while, there comes a phone that bucks this trend. The Samsung Galaxy A9 is one such device, and thanks to some leaked documents, we can see it now.

So, instead of sacrificing a bit of thinness for a bigger battery pack, Apple has opted to go for an unsightly hump for users to attach to their iPhones. The hump — which comes in at a whopping $99 — adds additional battery power over the internal unit.

The Samsung Galaxy S7 is right around the corner, apparently, so you can expect the leaks to keep flowing in. Uswitch and Onleaks are the benefactors this time, with the duo putting together some clear renders of what they believe the Samsung Galaxy S7 will look like based on the specifications sent to case manufacturers.

Microsoft released Cortana for Android in beta several months ago, but now it is finally available for everyone. Cortana is Microsoft’s digital assistant for Windows 10 and mobile phones. It works similarly to Google Now and Apple’s Siri. Information is provided to the user without being prompted, but it can also do a wide variety of voice searches. Cortana is a great alternative if you’re willing to give it a shot.

For starters, SamMobile does say the build number matches what they’ve seen from their Samsung insiders. It also has new features and UI tweaks that hasn’t been spotted in any current Lollipop firmware, so it’s much more than a deceptive build.prop edit.

We’ve heard many details about the Samsung Galaxy S7 to now, and the information train won’t be slowing down now that we’re right around the corner from 2016. While we haven’t seen anything tangible in regards to the device’s existence just yet, that changes with GSM Arena’s latest leak.

While it’s sure to include a variety of bug fixes, we’re just going to call Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow — rolling out soon to Nexus devices — Android’s big “emoji update.” Although the rollout has started quite yet, as promised, Google did release the factory images onto their developer page in case anyone wants to flash them manually.

Asus this year introduced so many ZenFone smartphones that we can barely keep track of them (not to mention that some models have special editions - like the ZenFone 2 Deluxe Special Edition). One of Asus' newest handsets is the ZenFone Max, which hasn't been released yet, despite the fact that it was supposed to go on sale in October.

It was about a month ago that Google seemed to be testing refreshed Google Now cards for Android Wear, but it’s only today the update is now finally ready for the masses. Highlighting the newly updated UI is Google’s very own Android social media accounts, showing off the new features in a quick video.

It was a strange turn of events back in August when Samsung first announced the impending release of the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 for US and other regions. While the S6 Edge+ was headed to the 4 corners of the globe, they oddly left out any word on a European release for the Note 5. Not long after that, the official word was that Samsung didn’t have any plans to launch the Note 5 in Europe, at least not in 2015. While that always meant 2016 was still a possibility, we didn’t want to get our hopes up.

Waterproof phones are nice for hygiene since you can always give them a light wash. KDDI and Kyocera went a step further and introduced the Digno Rafre – the world's first soap-proof phone. That's right, you can use soap to make sure the phone is as clean as it looks.

Samsung today dropped the big Galaxy A announcement on us. They’ve introduced 2nd generation models for all 3 phones in the lineup, including the Samsung Galaxy A3, Samsung Galaxy A5 andSamsung Galaxy A7. The line continues a nice tradition of using premium build materials (metal and glass) and decent mid-range performance (octa-core chipsets) for significantly less money than a flagship would command.

It’s no mystery that battery life on mobile devices leaves a lot to be desired. We’re often looking for outlets so we can plug in and get that little extra boost to help our devices make it through the day. One place where it’s not so easy to find an outlet is a vehicle. Car chargers are a great thing to have. TheZus Smart Car Charger can charge your phone, but it’s also an app-enabled car locator.

Blackberry Priv is just about set to receive its first software upgrade since launch. While we thought Blackberry’s first upgrade would simply be a monthly security patch, the company actually had a lot of changes to swing our way.

The ZenFone 2 Laser and ZenFone Selfie are two of Asus' latest smartphones, and they have many things in common. For example, both devices come with 5.5-inch 1080p screens that are protected by Gorilla Glass 4.

By now, those of you interested in picking up BlackBerry’s long overdue entry into the Android space have likely already done so. The BlackBerry Priv — now readily available on AT&T, directly from the manufacturer, and soon, Verizon — signals the return of the slide-out physical keyboard. You know, one of the main reasons “business types” stuck around with BlackBerry through the years, despite smartphones all moving to a similar all-display form factor.

While the dreams of getting something as robust as the desktop version of Adobe Premiere to edit videos on your phone may be a bit outside the realm of possibility, Adobe has introduced the next best thing. Adobe Premiere Clip is now available for Android.

The Exynos 8890, Samsung's next high-powered chipset, set a new record score on the AnTuTu benchmark site. The tally of 103,692 easily topped the 79,000 recently scored by the Kirin 950 SoC, Huawei's new top-of-the-line chip (a more recent run through of the Mate 8 produced a score above 94K). We expect to see the Exynos 8890 used in the Samsung Galaxy S7 and other high-end Galaxy handsets turned out by the manufacturer next-year. The test was conducted with the chip powering the SM-G9300, which is believed to be the Samsung Galaxy S7.

Thanksgiving, while a great way to spend quality time with the family, can quickly turn into a complete mess for others. Should you feel like tuning out political debates and your crazy uncle (we all have one), you might want to check out Google Play’s Cyber Weekend sale. It’s there you’ll find select game titles marked down as much as 70%, along with other great deals on apps, music, books and more.

In case you haven’t heard, Star Wars has a hot new game that’s now available on Google Play. It’s Galaxy of Heroes, a card game where you collect Star Wars characters to use in various turn-based battles and missions. The game features characters that span the entirety of the Star Wars timeline and universe, including the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy, the animated series and even new characters from the upcoming 7th episode titled The Force Awakens.

It’s been almost a good 2 months since the Samsung Gear S2 officially launched here in the US. Today, the smartwatch is getting its first big software update. Well, the Korean version anyway. Although an official changelog wasn’t posted, XDA member “supersoulfly” was able to detail some of the new changes you should expect to see when the update — build number R732XXU2BOKF — arrives for your model. Here’s some of what’s new.

OnePlus decided to go and make special Zirconia ceramic editions of their OnePlus X. The material, OnePlus says, is so hard to work with that only 20% of the backs they produce are good enough to pass their quality tests. That’s probably why there will only be 10,000 of these things in total.

You know there’s something wrong with your sales model when, as part of hundreds of Black Fridaydeals going live in a few days — you’re simply giving people the ability to purchase your phone. That’s it.

Samsung’s decision to exclude microSD slots from their 2015 flagships proved to be a very unpopular move, but the company could be looking to dodge that fire for their 2016 efforts. According to a newreport by HDBlog.It, Samsung is mulling over the possibility of reintroducing a microSD card slot for theSamsung Galaxy S7.

If you haven’t seen the plethora of reviews hitting the internets this morning, the Samsung Gear VR — the company’s second, and less-beta attempt at virtual reality — is now officially available for purchase. Compatible with (and only with) Samsung’s line of 2015 flagships, the all new Gear VR consumer version is powered by Oculus and delivers a first-class VR experience that wont break the bank.

Google Fit, while a great start for monitoring basic activity throughout your day, it’s really only offered a sort of bare bones experience. But in an update rolling out today on the Play Store, Google is bringing the app one step closer to a full fledged fitness coach.

Don’t bother checking your calendar, we’re no where near April 1st. But that hasn’t stopped the launch of one of the most WTF Android devices to launch in quite some time. Today, after rumors that Pepsi Co would soon launch their own branded smartphone in China, the Pepsi Phone P1 is finally official.

The camera found in the Galaxy S6/Edge/Plus/Note 5 is no joke. Earlier this year Samsung was finally able to deliver a smartphone camera that, for the first time ever, was capable of besting heavy weights from Apple’s lineup with little effort. It only makes that they’d want to further improve upon camera performance for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S7 and now we may finally know how.

Sony is rolling out an updated camera app for the new Xperia Z5 series of smartphones. The app was first shown off at IFA earlier this year.

Social Icons

Pages

RECENT POST

Popular Posts

Labels

Blog Archive