Over the last month or so, there have been whispers and leaked renders of Lenovo’s next phone, the Moto M. Thanks to a tweet from Krispitech and a report from The Verge, we now know more about the specs of the Moto M. The Moto M will feature Android Marshmallow, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625, fingerprint reader, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of expandable storage, and a 5100 mAh battery.
The Moto M looks to be extremely comparable to the Moto Z Play in many ways, and the lack of Moto Mod support hopefully means it will also be more affordable. In addition to the leaked specs, Krispitech hinted at a December release, which would be a timely release for the 2016 holiday season. Between the higher end specs, the full metal body, and the large battery, Lenovo has given us a lot to get excited about.
The use of smartphones has been rapidly and steadily increasing over the past few years. Today smartphones can be considered ubiquitous and everyone, from your work colleagues to your mother seems to be owning one.
You might think that given the prolific trend, the world’s biggest smartphones manufacturer like Samsung and LG are making profits like there’s no tomorrow, but the matter is a bit more delicate than that. Let me elaborate on that.
This week, three key Android OEM players in the smartphones market have posted their financial results for the third quarter of 2016, and the news isn’t good.
To be fair, in Samsung’s case, we were expecting it. Following the Galaxy Note7 demise, the Korean tech giant reported an operating loss of approximately $87.8 million, which amounts to a whopping 96% decrease compared to the same period last year. It’s the lowest the South Korean company has seen in the last eight years.
While the mobile division is dragging Samsung down, other subsidies are doing just fine and are quite profitable. All in all, the company announced an overall operating profit of approximately $4.5 billion.
The overall consensus is that Samsung will bounce back from the Galaxy Note7 disaster and the company is currently hard at work, concentrating its forces on its Messiah product, the Galaxy S8. The smartphone will hopefully wipe the slate clean for Samsung and restore its mobile division to its former glory. Or maybe not.
The same story repeats itself at LG. Despite making tons of cash thanks to its home appliances, air conditioners and TV sales, which amounts for a record $340.4 million profit, LG’s mobile division is slumping.
In Q3 LG’s mobile division posted a loss of $389.4 million, with products like the LG G5 and LV20 not doing much of anything to help the company bounce back. Perhaps it would be time for LG to take a step back and find a way to consider its mobile strategy from a new perspective?
HTC posted its financial results too, which revealed a $57 million loss. There’s not much surprise there, though. Gone are the days of the HTC Evo 4G and the company’s new products aren’t really keeping up with the competition.
HTC has been on a downward trend for years and the arrival of the HTC 10 hasn’t done much to reverse the situation, although the company claims the smartphone “has been embraced by the market”. Apparently not enough.
Now what all these three stories have in common is that three major players in the Android smartphone markers are leaking a lot of money through their mobile division. So, what’s happening?
The uproar of Chinese manufacturers that are offering super affordable smartphones with awesome specifications (just look at the new Xiaomi Mi Note 2) might be part of the explanation. Also, people are less than willing to update their smartphone on a yearly basis, especially if said smartphone sells for around $800.
An overall slowdown in the smartphone market has also been noticed. Since everyone owns a smartphone today, new adopters are slowly becoming a dying breed.
In a saturated market, brands need to go beyond hardware in order to succeed. Over the last few years, smartphones have started to look the same, with technology innovation measured in steps rather than in leaps.
This is why when Samsung launches a new premium phone now, mostly die-hard fans are around to mark the occasion. Relatively small, incremental updates aren’t enough to make the masses really want to get their hands on this particular phones, anymore.
Customers are starting to see that real innovation might not come from the tech titans, but from smaller brands like OnePlus, ZTE or Xiaomi which have unique things to offer, at affordable prices. Smartphone giants would do well to treat this threat seriously.
Are you a current or prospective AT&T customer looking for a new smartphone? You’re in luck as there are nearly two dozen models to choose from at Ma Bell.
While its portfolio doesn’t quite match up to some of the others right now, there’s still plenty to choose from. Regardless of whether you are seeking a new flagship model to get you through the next year, or just something to get your feet wet, you’ll find something great.
If are afraid of being stuck doing business with major carriers when looking for cellphone service, then you should know alternatives exist. One is called prepaid carriers and what’s great about them is they normally offer flexible plans, better pricing offers and pretty nice customer service. Like Cricket Wireless.
The carrier just announced a new rate plan which offers users 8GB of LTE data for $50/month. If you remember T-Mobile’s prepaid branch, MetroPCS also announced a similar offer not so long ago.
If you are already signed up with Cricket on a $50/month plan and want to upgrade to the 8GB option, the carrier says you should visit the nearest Cricket Wireless branded store or its official website via the MyCricket app or by contacting Customer Care.
For those who are interested in jumping onboard the Cricket bandwagon, note that you can take $5 off the bill by enabling AutoPay in your account. This means you’ll be getting 8GB data a month for only $45.
Cricket is offering text, talk and data access plans starting at $30/month depending on your budget. A more expensive data plan for $65/month (after Auto Pay) also exists which offers unlimited text, talk and high-speed data.
Torrents have been available since around 2001, and the main purpose was to facilitate file transfers among different locations. However, since its inception, it’s been mostly used for shady, illegal purposes. For those of you who use torrents for legal transfer, you might know that there are some pretty good clients in the Play Store. Household names such as uTorrent and BitTorrent have extended their offerings to Android after enjoying much success in desktop environments, while other newcomers such as Flud and tTorrent provide Android-focused solutions.
Developer Pirate Cats has now unleashed Cat Torrent to the masses, promising a straightforward, no-nonsense experience with support for SD cards, speed limits, and a nice interface.
Apps that require no setup processes or tedious account creation are always good, and it’s obvious that this developer thinks exactly as I do. Upon launching the app for the first time, you are immediately shown the main screen. No setup needed, no nagging users to create accounts, nothing. Most of the time, if you’re downloading a torrent client, it’s because you know exactly what you’re doing, so Pirate Cats decided to omit a tutorial or other similar introductory views. If you are new to the torrent world, however, then you might want to read something about it first before using this app.
Overview
To start torrenting files, simply press the FAB at the bottom and a file explorer will open. This way, you can navigate to the place you downloaded your .torrent file.
Also, when you download a .torrent file from your browser, Android will detect that Cat Torrent can open this kind of file and will show up a dialog in which you will be able to configure the save path and whether segments should be downloaded in parallel with other segments or sequentially after the current one is over.
Cat Torrent lets you see useful information about your torrents.
Upon starting your download, the app will show in its main interface the list of all of the torrents you’re downloading. This will show essential information, such as download and upload speed, and the progress of your torrent. More detailed data is a click away. Here you will be able to see the files in your torrent, peers, and comments.
You can also check out torrents in different statuses from the side drawer. Hitting the hamburger button at the top left of your screen will open the options to filter your torrents in different categories such as Seeding, Done, Active, and Inactive. I feel like an easier way of filtering your torrents would have been by adding the option to the top bar instead of hiding them under the navigation drawer, but that’s personal preference. It’s easy to navigate the app, nonetheless.
The Android phone I used for testing was midrange at best, and the app did a poor job of adjusting itself to my low screen resolution. Text overlapped in some views, making for a really poor user experience and something that should’ve been tested further. Other than that, the app performed well under different conditions.
Options
There are useful options, but some essential ones are missing.
There’s a decent amount of options available to play with. First and foremost, AMOLED screen users will be happy to know that the app not only supports changing the theme to Dark but also to full-on Black color. This should help in keeping those pixels turned off and conserve battery. Another useful option is the “WiFi only mode,” and I welcome the fact that it is turned on by default. This prevents your data from being slaughtered by the constant upload and download of files.
Other settings that users might appreciate are the default downloading location, download files only when charging, and download/upload speed limits. I’ve seen other torrent clients offering the option of moving torrents when finished (so you can save them to your internal storage and then move them to the SD), maximum permitted downloads/uploads, limits (or shutdown) on torrents after a certain battery percentage has been reached, and scheduled start and shutdown times, but, unfortunately, Cat Torrent still doesn’t have that many options available.
Conclusion
Cat Torrent is a fairly new torrent client in the Android ecosystem, but it’s a really solid one, nevertheless. The main functionality of the app is flawless, the interface adheres well to Material Design, and the options it has work just as advertised. However, some more established clients have a wide range of options (which is actually understandable, since they had a head start). Also, some UI flaws make it look unpolished and more like a beta instead of a real app. On the bright side, with some updates to add some useful options, Cat Torrent can easily become a strong contender in the torrent client segment so it’s worth keeping an eye on for future development.
ZTE has been turning heads with its Axon lineup and has just officially announced the Axon 7 Max. The combination of beautiful design and flagship specs, all at mid-tier price pricing, has made the Axon 7 one of the best values available to consumers today. The Axon 7 Max maintains the build quality of the Axon 7 while offering a bigger screen, bigger battery, 3D capability, and a dual camera setup for $442.
Axon 7 Max
GizmoChina is reporting that the ZTE Axon 7 Max will have a 6″ 1080p 3D-capable display protected by Gorilla Glass 4. The Axon 7 Max will come with a duel camera setup powered by two 13 MP sensors. One sensor will capture full-color images while the second sensor will capture black and white images to add depth to pictures. The primary camera will have a f/2.0 aperture, laser autofocus, and dual LED flash. Users will have 64GB of expandable storage to store their pictures and movies. Powering the Axon 7 Max will be a 4100 mAh battery, Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 SoC, 4GB of Ram and Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
Axon 7 Max Camera
ZTE continues to put pressure on the mid-tier phone market by bringing quality at an extremely affordable price. The Axon 7 Max, starting at $442, will see a $50 price bump compared to its smaller relative the Axon 7. While many will scoff at the $50 price bump, ZTE is offering a lot with the Axon 7 Max, and the phone will likely be a great option for anyone looking to get a larger device with a great camera.
Are you looking for an innovative smartphone that offers something more than the current slew of Android handsets? Then you should be looking at Google and Lenovo.
Google has been involved in a bunch of interesting projects over the years like Project Ara or Project Tango. The latter represents Google’s initiative to get mobile phones (and tablets) to “see” the way we see.
Originally announced back in 2014, Google Tango phones are expected to come boasting full spatial awareness and the ability to “understand” the environment and the user’s relation to it. Google teased its first Project Tango phone, the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro at MWC 2016 back in February, while promising the device will be making its way into the hands of customers in the summer. Which didn’t exactly turn out to be the case.
However, this week we bring you good news. The Lenovo Phab 2 Pro appears to be headed for a November 1 launch, according to the official website.
The device should arrive with a demo software version which will allow users to add virtual overlays and 3D experiences to their environment. The Lenovo Phab 2 Pro can be used to measure depth and convey 3D space, while current smartphones and PCs are equipped to “see” only the average 2D picture. An example would be, overlaying to-scale animals on a classroom’s wall and letting students walk among them and study them up-close.
Spec-wise, the Phab 2 Pro comes with a spacious 6.4-inch display with 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution. Puzzlingly, Lenovo is using a mid-range Snapdragon 652 processor to support the phablet’s processes, although the chipset has been supposedly fine-tuned especially for Tango. There’s also 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage onboard.
In the photo department, the deice takes advantage of a rear 13MP sensor with f/2.0 and a 5MP selfie camera. Lenovo is also teasing the mind-blowing effects of Cinema Dolby Atmos surround sound system. The phablet is also said to be able to record amazing audio with 360-degree immersive quality.
The device will start shipping to customers for $499 a pop, which is relatively affordable for an experimental handset like this.
While we wait for the first Tango smartphone to make an appearance, customers can orient themselves towards the Lenovo Phab 2 which the company is currently selling in unlocked form for $199.99.
While the device sports the same 6.4-inch display, the rest of the spec list is quite different. The Phab 2 is basically a watered down version of the Tango phone, offering only 1280 x 720-pixel resolution, a MediaTek MT8735 quad-core chipset, 3GB of RAM with 3GB of RAM, a 13MP/5MP camera combo and Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box.
NVIDIA’s Shield Android TV is an Android TV based set-top box designed to deliver home entertainment and gaming. If you have one of these devices laying around the house, the good news is that NVIDIA is currently rolling out an update which brings a lot of improvements.
The update dubbed Software Upgrade 3.3 will bestow audio improvements to media apps like Plex, Kodi v17 and MX Player. Plex is also getting Dolby Atmos audio pass-through support, also. We’re also told the Vulkan graphics API has received an updated too. Software Upgrade 3.3 which is still based on Android Marshmallow, will be patching up a number of security vulnerabilities, as well.
The Android TV is also getting a host of new apps like MTV, Nick and fuboTV.
NVIDIA also announced that PlayStation Vue is now available for its Shield TVs. For those who are not familiar with Sony’s PlayStation Vue, the service allows users to watch live and on-demand TV programs over the Internet.
Initially the PlayStation Vue required PlayStation hardware to operate, but soon it expanded its reach to include the Amazon Fire TV, Roku and Chromecast. And from now on PlayStation Vue will be playing nice with Android TV devices. Sony has plans to bring the service to PC or Mac via browser, as well.
PlayStation Vue is available across the US with options which include plans starting from $30 a month for a package of 55+ channels in select markets. In other areas, customers can get a much better deal for $10 a month, if Sony has a deal in place with the local broadcast stations.
Going back to the NVIDIA Shield update, users should see it arrive in the form of an OTA update. As it is always the case, the update will hit some NVIDIA’s Android TVs sooner, while others will receive it later depending on location.
If you can’t wait, you can’t always manually check if the update has arrived by accessing the Shield’s settings menu, then “About” and finally “System Update”.
After the Galaxy Note7 was eradicated from existence, Samsung expressly asked users to return the phablet and take advantage of the available ailments.
But the thing is, a lot of users don’t seem too keen on following Samsung’s guideline. We recently told you it is estimated that more than 1 million customers are still holding on to the potentially dangerous Note7. Some still consider the device a very capable phone, one that’s not easily replaceable. Some users are waiting for Samsung to unveil the Galaxy S8 next year, but we’re still a few months away from that.
So that leaves Samsung with a lot of Note7s units that are still operating in the wild. The Korean tech giant has done its best to try and convince users to return the Note7, but it is pretty evident at this point not everyone will do that.
In an attempt to keep harm from coming to users who are still hell-bent on keeping their phablet, Samsung is now rolling out an update for the Note7. It’s the second update released that aims to minimize the risk of overheating and explosion, reports Coolsmartphone.
The first update installed a limit for battery charging beyond 60%, a precaution taken to prevent the phone from “exploding”. The new update will now deliver notification reminding Note7 users that it’s high time to return their handsets.
Samsung is trying to do the right thing here, but we doubt it very much that Note7 enthusiasts will be persuaded by a bunch of notifications.
Until Samsung doesn’t come out with another premium phablet, we don’t see the trend changing. Info about the next-gen Galaxy S8 has already started leaking in the media.
According to rumors the phone should arrive with a 5.5-inch 4K display, 6GB of RAM, an iris scanner plus a dual-camera setup in the vein of the LG V20.
The handset is also said to be the first in the world to come with optical fingerprint recognition tech. This means Samsung might finally say bye-bye to the home button.
The 808 Hex Light Bluetooth speaker is equipped with all the right tools to ensure that you are the life of the party. The combination of six color light modes and an EQ bass booster bring all the elements of a rave-like atmosphere in a compact package.
Build
Price: $79.99
Size: 3.55″ wide x 6.3″ tall x 3.55″ deep
Weight: 1 pound
Color: Black
The speaker is a conical shape design that starts off narrow at the top and gets wider towards the bottom. The foundation is made of metal that has a hexagonal grill. The top of the speaker is where all of the controls lie. There are buttons to increase and decrease volume, the power button, change light modes, hands-free calling, and the EQ bass booster. Pairing the speaker requires long-pressing the power button.
Sound
The compact speaker packs a pretty mean punch in the volume department. It can get pretty loud before the sound starts to distort. When the volume gets too high, the music starts to sound crackly.
The Hex Light speaker has an EQ mode, which is basically a bass booster. The combination of the EQ mode and the bass radiator provides a significant boost in the bass, while dialing back the mid-range. I could physically feel the table vibrating when the EQ mode was on. This is a good option for those that like bass-heavy genres, such as hip-hop. I personally felt that the bass slightly overpowered the vocals in certain songs and turned the EQ mode off. I noticed that navigating to new songs will chop off the first couple seconds of the song.
Lights
The highlight of this speaker is definitely the lights. The color options include everything in the rainbow spectrum. There are six light modes: Solid, Pulse, Breathe, Chase, Chill and Rave. My favorite option was Breathe and Rave.
The Breathe option slowly lights up in rotating colors, while the Rave option lights up to the beat of the song. You can also turn this option off if the lights start to get annoying.
Usage
I found myself using this a lot around the house. This speaker claims to have an eight hour battery life. I only used it for 4-5 hours before I put in back on the charger. I personally do not like to let my electronics die. I used it at around 60-70% max volume with the light mode turned on. The battery life may decrease if used at a higher volume. However, the speaker will probably not be used at such high volumes anyways due to the distortion of sound. It was the perfect device to listen to music while playing Settlers of Catan. Pairing the speaker to my phone was relatively pain-free. However, the speaker makes a somewhat obnoxious sound when it is turned on and off.
There is a hands-free calling option on the speaker which allows you to take calls. I called my friend using this feature and he said he could hear me clearly without any distortion. It is a convenient feature that doesn’t force you to disconnect.
I really liked the sturdiness of the speaker. The main frame is made of metal with a unique hexagonal grill.
I feel comfortable taking this outside and not worrying about it breaking if it does fall on the ground. The speaker is not waterproof, so use it next to a pool with caution.
Summary
The Hex Light Bluetooth Speaker offers a bass-focused music experience. The single-driver packs a pretty mean punch in the volume department. At $79.99 on Amazon with free shipping, this speaker is a bit pricey compared to the other options available at 808 Audio. However, it offers a unique light-show experience that kids will love. If you are a hardcore music lover this is probably not the speaker for you. This speaker is designed for the younger age group that focuses more on entertainment rather than sound quality.
