Google officially announced the 4.4 KitKat a couple of days and today, Sony has revealed its Android upgrade roadmap. In an official blog post, the Japanese manufacturer has also announced its plans with the 4.3 Jelly Bean roll out. As promised, Sony will be bringing the Android 4.3 Jelly Bean to its Xperia Z, Xperia ZL, Xperia ZR, Xperia SP, Xperia Z Ultra, Xperia Z1 and the Xperia Tablet Z....
There's a new feature that came with Android 4.4 KitKat – screen recording – and some of us appear to be more excited about it than others. The prospect of a non-laggy, native recording with...
Here's something you probably haven't even heard of yet. It's a little something that Google engineers have been working on for over two years, which will change the very way your Android smartphone runs apps. ART, which is short for Android Runtime, aims to replace Dalvik and change the way your Android-powered smartphone runs. Dalvik is the one responsible for running apps on Android. Its...
If you like to listen to music while working out, snowboarding, jogging or whatever, but do not care for...
Today is probably the second most important day for Twitter since the microblog started way back in 2006 - the company is going public…
More than a couple of years ago, when Android was still adding market share in chunks and taking no prisoners, research showed that Microsoft could make as much money off Android as Google does by getting all patent licenses signed; yes, we understand that technically, Google makes nothing from the sale of Android devices because of the open source nature of the software...
Ever since, Google unveiled its Nexus 5, the smartphone has been the talk of the town. As expected, initial stock of the Google Nexus 5 was sold out within a few minutes of going up on Play Store. If you are in the US, you can also get it from T-Mobile, where Google's latest flagship device will be available starting on November 20. According to a leaked internal document, the T-Mobile...
The Nexus 5, Google’s showcase device for Android 4.4 KitKat, is now here and cruel-hearted gadget torturers have it in their hands for a drop test…
Drop your new Apple iPhone 5s and crack the screen? That is enough to ruin your day, make you feel depressed and wonder why you have been singled out to bear this pain; according to a new report on Thursday, there might be an easy way to get the violins to stop playing and to regain your sunny disposition. All it would take would be a quick trip to the local Apple Store...
The Samsung Galaxy Round was the second announced and the first released curved smartphone on the market. Like its LG G Flex rival, the Galaxy Round was recently announced and released in Korea. And while LG's curved phone will make its way to Europe, USA and China soon, Samsung has so far announced no plans to expand the Round availability outside of Korea. Even though the Galaxy Round is...
With KitKat Google is experimenting on a completely new runtime environment for apps called ART, short for Android Runtime, which is apparently the bee's knees. After a patent spat with Oracle on the Java-based Dalvik runtime that ensnares Android at the moment, Google is obviously determined to create a complete replacement, but that's not the whole story...
Google announced the Nexus 5 a while back, and with it came the latest iteration of Android - 4.4 KitKat. Within a day, Nexus 5 made its way into the hands of talented developers and Google too helped along, with the AOSP builds instantly going live. We then rapidly saw ports and AOSP builds popping up, with one for the Nexus 4 claiming to be a direct port of the Nexus 5 ROM. That was intriguing enough for a flashing opportunity, and so we jumped on it, right away. It turned out to be exactly that, with the complete feature set, rather than the lacking AOSP builds. We used it long enough to discover and use all the user-facing features of Android 4.4 KitKat and hence, presenting you an in-depth overview of the same in a 26-minute video - httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd_fYgWEnns Read past the break for a walkthrough in text and photos. Changes to the User Interface The first thing you will notice when you power on your KitKat phone is the lockscreen. While the lockscreen has always been clean, gone is the bold hour clock and in comes the light font for the whole clock. More notably, there are two extra icons at the ...
We've been hearing all about the Apple iWatch, and the noise has definitely been kicked-up a notch ever since Samsung outed their conflicting Gear smartwatch. By now...
People sure had high hopes for the curvy Samsung Galaxy Round, though Sammy's new boy made it obvious that a truly flexible experience (straight out of a sci-fi flick) is still a few years away...
People sure had high hopes for the curvy Samsung Galaxy Round, though Sammy's new boy made it obvious that a truly flexible experience (straight out of a sci-fi flick) is still a few years away...
We know you can't wait for a battery rundown of the Nexus 5, and we made one as soon as we had a chance, with pretty foretold results. Google's Nexus 5 skimps on a few things to get to that juicy $350 price point without subsidies, and perhaps the most major one is its 2300 mAh battery capacity...
Owners of the flagship Sony Xperia Z1 and Z Ultra will be delighted to learn that their devices might go straight to Android 4.4 KitKat in the end of January/beginning of February timeframe, insiders have indicated...
The HTC M8 is allegedly the company's flagship smartphone for 2014 and today it has emerged in a trio of photos. While the quality of the shots could certainly be better, the images suggest HTC is keen on sticking with the design strategy it introduced with the HTC One. As pictured, the HTC M8 boasts a cutout for a fingerprint scanner above the camera, though not as large as the one...
A Samsung presentation slide had a new 16 MP ISOCELL sensor listed that we didn't previously know about. When it announced the ISOCELL tech with superior low-light abilities, Samsung only mentioned an 8 MP unit is in the works, but the influx of 13 MP and even 20 MP or 40 MP phones, has apparently upped the resolution ante for it...
Coming from the same Samsung Analyst Day 2013 conference call that brought us information on Samsung's next-generation processing plans and 100,000,000 Galaxy S's and Notes selling in 2013, we get information regarding the 2014 Samsung flagships cameras. Straight from the President of System LSI Business we learn that in 2014 Samsung smartphones will use a 16 MP ISOCELL sensor with 1.12 µm...
We know you can't wait for a battery rundown of the Nexus 5, and we made one as soon as we had a chance, with pretty foretold results. Google's Nexus 5 skimps on a few things to get to that juicy $350 price point without subsidies, and perhaps the most major one is its 2300 mAh battery capacity...
Samsung held their second Analyst Day yesterday and the outcome of the event is that we now have an idea regarding what Samsung is planning for the smartphone market in the next couple of years. Among the various important revelations in event, certain highlights were that Samsung will be producing their custom ARM core CPUs and are planning to introduce 560ppi display smartphones in 2014 and 4K phones in the year after. Through the various slides revealed during the event, Samsung have officially confirmed that they are indeed working on their own application processor. Until now, Samsung had licensed Cortex processors from ARM and used them in their Exynos chipsets. Henceforth, Samsung will be developing their own processors very much like how Apple and Qualcomm are doing it. The slides indicates that Samsung will be going to the land of 64bit processors where Apple are already sitting pretty. Some of the other important milestones for the future include 560ppi SuperAMOLED displays for next year and 4K displays for the year after. One can argue that 4K TVs are yet to make their way to the mass consumer, how will the smartphones appeal - we may never know. Samsung were the first company to ...
Google launched the Nexus 5, the company’s latest flagship smartphone last month. We brought you the unboxing of the device earlier this week, here we have the benchmarks of the device. It is manufactured by LG and is powered by a 2.2 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974) 28nm HPm quad-core Krait 400 CPU clocked with Adreno 330 GPU. We brought you the benchmarks of the Snapdragon 800 on a reference smartphone few months back. Here we have also compared it in these benchmarks to show you the difference. Since Google has optimized the processor to use the minimal use of CPU cores when the phone is idle, some benchmarks such as Quadrant, AnTuTu and Linpack shows low scores. GPU-based benchmarks doesn't get affected. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD-aSSHuRcE Quadrant Benchmark The Nexus 5 manages to score 8379 points in the Quadrant benchmark, since the CPU use is minimal when the benchmark runs. AnTuTu Benchmark 3.3 The nexus 5 scores 22876 points in the AnTuTu Benchmark 3.3, again due to the CPU optimization in the device. Vellamo 2.0 HTML5 Again the phone manages to score 1403 points in the Vellamo 2 HTML5 browser benchmark. Vellamo 2.0 Metal It manages to score 1088 points in the Vellamo 2 Metal CPU subsystem performance test. Linpack Single Thread It ...
The Rayman game series are one of the best platformers for mobile devices and the new Rayman Fiesta Run has just been released on iOS and coming to Android later today…
Samsung hinted about foldable displays being on tap for 2015 release at its analyst event presentation yesterday, and it has seemingly also showed concept device prototypes to investors...
You might recall that before the HTC One received its real name, it had a code name, the M7; now, pictures allegedly showing the back cover of the M8 have leaked. And judging from the hole near the top of the part, a fingerprint scanner will be one of the features of the Taiwan manufacturer's new flagship phone. But unlike the scanner on the HTC One max, which is found under the camera lens, the scanner will now be found above the snapper...
You might recall that before the HTC One received its real name, it had a code name, the M7; now, pictures allegedly showing the back cover of the M8 have leaked. And judging from the hole near the top of the part, a fingerprint scanner will be one of the features of the Taiwan manufacturer's new flagship phone. But unlike the scanner on the HTC One max, which is found under the camera lens, the scanner will now be found above the snapper...
We've already seen the first signs that an Android 4.4.1 is already in the works, but we now have additional information that seems to indicate that Google is working on it...
We know you can't wait for a battery rundown of the Nexus 5, and we made one as soon as we had a chance, with pretty foretold results. Google's Nexus 5 skimps on a few things to get to that juicy $350 price point without subsidies, and perhaps the most major one is its 2300 mAh battery capacity...
In a market where the competition has been cutting subscribers' monthly data amounts, in Australia Vodafone is doing the opposite; a new promotion gives users twice the amount of data that they have contracted for. The operator's CMO, Kim Clarke, succinctly sums up the situation."We have increased our data allowances this year while the others have sat on their hands or gone backwards"...
There have been continuous reports for the past couple months that Apple was facing production shortages on a couple of its new flagship devices. Both the iPhone 5s and the iPad mini Retina have been having production issues that cut into supplies; but, a new report from The Wall Street Journal is saying that Apple is finally fighting back to combat those shortages...
While MediaTek has a reputation as the chip used in entry-level smartphones by manufacturers, the company did gain some notoriety earlier this year by developing the first true octa-core processor; according to industry sources, the silicon slinger usually spends 20% of its annual revenue on R&D. That would mean that for this year the figure will reach NT$26 billion ($884 million USD) and rise to NT$30 billion ($1.02 billion USD) in 2014...
BlackBerry has lost money in five of its last seven quarters; last year, the company lost $646 million. Last quarter alone, operating losses totaled nearly $1 billion mostly because of a massive $930 million to $960 million write-down of BlackBerry Z10 inventory. But all of this red ink is not necessarily bad for the Canadian based company...
The latest monthly report from comScore has been released and it shows that based on the average monthly figures for the third quarter, iOS and Windows Phone snatched up the market share lost by Android and BlackBerry; the report shows that for the third quarter, iOS was running 40.6% of smartphones in the U.S. That was up from the 39.9% average monthly market share scored by Apple's mobile OS in the second quarter...
On November 22nd, the U.S. will be remembering the 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK; but for others, the date represents the launch of a couple of new Nokia devices in the states. According to the leaked screenshot of an inventory page, the Nokia Lumia 1520 phablet on AT&T and the Nokia Lumia 2520 tablet for AT&T and Verizon, will hit the market on Friday November 22nd...
