A new comer to the industry, Maze made a positive first impression with its bezeless smartphone, the Alpha which borrowed a lot of design cues from the Xiaomi Mi MIX.
The Maze Alpha bezeless smartphone
Now the company is working on a new smartphone which like the Alpha, takes its inspiration from popular products – but this time it’s the Samsung Galaxy S8 and LG G6 who provide the influence. That’s right, the phone will come with an 18:9 aspect ratio, so it’s going to be taller and narrower than most phones available on the market today. Most importantly, it will probably come with an affordable price tag (the Maze Alpha is currently available for $189.99 and up).
LG already announced a lineup of 18:9 phones for the budget-conscious consumer, christened the Q6, but we dare assume Maze’s new phone will be even more affordable.
Anyway, the product will be sold as the Maze Comet and will arrive with a 5.7-inch display with unknown resolution. The smartphone will include an octa-core processor, a Sony IMX258 13-megapixel sensor and a pretty hefty 4,000 mAh battery.
Expect the Comet to be made from a premium leather/metal combination. The phone – which should land on the market by the end of September – will be available in Deep Blue for a yet to be disclosed price tag.
Going into my first hands-on with a major phone company, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Was it gonna be a room full of people in a formal setting? Was there going to be food? Was it a private hands on, or would there be other bloggers there? Fortunately, it turned out to be a very casual, private hands on with ZTE’s newest handset, the Metro-exclusive Blade Z Max.
Specs
Display: 6″ IPS LCD 1080p screen with Dragontrail* Glass
Processor: Snapdragon 435 (1.4GHz octa-core)
RAM/ROM: 2/32GB, expandable to 128GB.
Camera: 16/2MP dual rear-camera, 8MP selfie camera
Internal Features: 802.11n wifi, Bluetooth 4.2, Type C USB (2.0), Fingerprint Sensor
Battery: 4080MaH
Software: Android 7.1.1 Nougat
Looking at the specs, nothing really stands out too much, beyond that massive, massive 4080MaH battery. It’s got kind of a slow processor for a modern smartphone, the RAM is a touch low, the dual cameras and internal features are very nice, but nothing really world shattering, no?
That is, until you see the price tag.
I’ll let you steady yourself.
Ready?
$129.99.
Hold on, let me reiterate.
$129.99.
That’s the retail price. That’s not the down payment you throw down, with a monthly payment after that. That’s not paying for just the screen, or the MicroSD that goes in it. That’s the cost of the entire phone. Compare it with the Moto G5, spec-wise, and tell me where that phone outdoes the Blade Z Max. I’ll wait. I mean, at that price you don’t even need to buy a case for it.
Anyway – here’s my hands on impressions, with a full review coming at a later date!
What I Liked
Everything. No, seriously. When taking into consideration the price point, this is truly a phenomenal phone. When compared to other phones at the same price point, it blows them all out of the water – even at the $250 price point, it’s hard to find a phone that can hang with the Blade Z Max’s combination of size, modern features, and internal components.
The battery. At 4080MaH and running only a Snapdragon 435, this baby lasts forever, even with heavy usage.
The design. It’s pretty smooth, for a budget phone. A nice, textured back makes reaching the corners a breeze, without the risk of dropping the thing. Type C charging is a nice touch, as is the fingerprint sensor, which both behave as you’d expect from pricier phones.
Fingerprint sensor in easy reach.
The price. Obviously, $129 is a phenomenal price for a phone that’s actually usable – and it very much is! Asking my coworkers what kind of price point they’d expect from this phone, they all told me at least $500 – and I’m inclined to agree.
The OS. This phone runs the most recent version of Android, 7.1.1 Nougat. It’s not often you see a phone delivered with the most modern version stock, but here one is. Furthermore, with a couple exceptions, it runs a stock version of the OS, with only a couple modifications to AOSP apps.
The camera. While it’s not a world-shaking piece of hardware, the back shooter is very capable, being a dual-lens affair. Props to ZTE for spotting a hot trend and shoving it into a budget device.
What I Didn’t Like
The screen. This, to me is kind of an unknown. Instead of opting for the industry standard Corning Gorilla Glass, ZTE has gone with a different standard – something called DragonTrail glass, which I’d never heard of. According to ZTE:
“Dragontrail glass is an alkali-aluminosilicate sheet glass engineered for a combination of thinness, lightness and damage-resistance, similar to Corning’s Gorilla Glass. The material’s primary properties are its strength, allowing thin glass without fragility, high scratch resistance and hardness.”
It’s big, I won’t lie – but not prohibitively so.
It’s not the Gorilla Glass we’ve come to accept as the cream of the crop, but in practice has thus far been every bit as scratch resistant as the industry leader. So while I list it under things I didn’t like, take it more as a “Things I’m Unsure Of.”
No NFC. I’m not terribly torn up over this, but a lack of NFC means no Android Pay and no easy account migration. Not deal breaking, but worth noting.
Metro only. The Blade Z Max is a Metro-exclusive device, and that’s the bad news. The good news is that ZTE has assured me that it is hardly the only device it will be putting on the market with this kind of specs at this price point, so maybe we’ll see something like it on one of the major carriers.
This…might be a bit of a game changer. A highly affordable handset with usable specs and modern features? Sign me up.
We hate to be the bearer of bad news but today we have some for Opera Max users. The Norwegian developer announced that the popular data-saving app – originally launched in 2014 – has been discontinued.
The reason for this unexpected move? The company claims it wants to focus on its browser products and stop investing resources into other developments such as Opera Max.
Thus Opera Max has been removed from the Google Play Store and no updates for the app will be issued in the future.
Furthermore, we’re told Opera Max service will remain intact for the existing user base for a period of time, so Android users will still be able to take advantage of the app for a while. The company will notify users about the termination of server-side support.
Not so long ago, back in May, a new update for Opera Max was pushed which brought significant improvements including a new UI design and big data-savings for Facebook. Which is why we find the developer’s decision to terminate the app quite puzzling.
Especially counting in the fact that the app was quite popular. Back in December 2016, Opera announced that its data-saving app crossed the 50 million user mark. Despite positive user feedback, it seems Opera has other plans for the future.
We previously heard rumors that T-Mobile was gearing up to introduce a its own affordable smartphone with decent specs. Well, the carrier recently announced the phone – baptized REVVL – which is now available for purchase at participating stores and online.
The device arrives with a 5.5-inch HD display (so just 1280 x 720 resolution) and a quad-core MediaTek MT6738 processor clocked at 1.5GHz. It includes 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage (expandable to 128GB), as well as a 13-megapixel/5-megapixel camera combo.
The phone relies on a 3,000 mAh battery and features a fingerprint scanner for added data protection. It runs Android Nougat out of the box.
As you can see the phone doesn’t bring much in terms of specs, so it’s probably a good choice for first-time smartphone users. However, previous rumors have indicated T-Mobile might be prepping two additional models to be sold under the same REVVL banner. Hopefully, these yet to be announced products will feature more advanced specs to the table, while also keeping prices low.
Anyway if you’re interested in buying the REVVL, T-Mobile is selling it for $125 outright or for $5 down and $5/month on an equipment installment plan or $0 down and $5/month with JUMP! On Demand.
The new phone is part of the JUMP! On Demand program which means customers can lease a phone for 18 months while upgrading to a new device multiple times a year. Other devices included in the program are the Samsung Galaxy J3 Prime and LG Aristo for $7/month, as well as LG K20 Plus and ZTE ZMax Pro for $8/month.
In anticipation of the LG V30’s launch on August 31, the Korean tech giant is providing us with more details regarding its upcoming flagship. This time, we get to learn more about the upgraded UX 6.0+ which will come pre-installed on the new phone.
The new UX has been updated in order to provide more personalization for the V30’s FullVision OLED display.
LG details a new option dubbed Graphy which can be accessed in the camera’s Manual Mode. Graphy gives access to features such as white balance, shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, as well as providing users with a library of professional photos that can be downloaded from the Graphy website and mobile app. Each one of these photos will represent a different style you can choose for your shot.
Different shooting modes including auto, grid shot, snap shot and match shot will also be available on board of the LG V30. What’s more, the phone will also allow users to easily create GIFs or movies made from photos or video files.
We already know the LG V30 won’t feature a secondary “ticker” display, unlike its predecessors. In the press release, LG notes the new flagship will feature a “Floating Bar” instead. The semi-transparent bar can be used to quickly access frequently used apps or functions. But in case you don’t need/want it, users can easily drag it off the display.
In the same press release, LG also notes the phone will include an Always On Display (AOD) which besides showing the clock can also be configured to display Quick Tools, Music Player or a personal photograph.
LG is putting an emphasis on security with the new phone, so the Korean company has embedded a Face Recognition functionality that lets users unlock the device with their face.
Note the handset can be unlocked using Voice Recognition, with the owner speaking out a bunch of self-generated keywords (three to five syllables combined).
Last but not least, we learn the phone will take advantage of haptic feedback that can be customized with various included vibration combinations matching the phone’s ringtone.
Don’t forget to check back in with us for the latest scoop on the V30 which is expected to be officially launched in three weeks.
Google’s Internet of Things platform has been updated to Preview 5 and includes the major change of being based on Android O.
Android Things Developer Preview 5 updates the platform to be based on Android O as opposed to the previous Android N. The latest release brings into play the latest API 26 that developers now need to target for the support libraries.
DP5 now adds support for the new NXP SprIoT i.MX6UL design and also sees the Intel hardware designs Edison and Joule discontinued. There are also added API improvements that come courtesy of the updated version of Android and also some specifically for Andriod Things.
For those developers using UserDriver APIs, you will need to add new permissions to your AndroidManifest.xml. The documentation contains details about the permissions needed for each driver type. DP5 also now supports OpenGL ES 2.0 and WebView on the Raspberry Pi 3, which was a highly requested feature from developers. There’s also dynamic pin muxing for the Raspberry Pi 3, with pins being configured at runtime depending on what features are being used.
Google also recently launched the Android Things Console to provide the ability for over-the-air updates to IoT devices but DP5 needs to be manually triggered to grab the update.
As a smartphone user, you probably check your device’s battery levels at least a few times a day. After all, you want to make sure you have enough juice to be able to play a game while you’re waiting for the subway to take you home from work, right?
But what if I told you there’s a cooler way of checking your battery’s status? Forget the boring battery icon that sits in the top right corner of your display and say hello to a more colorful battery checking experience. Say hello to Battery Bar.
Getting started
As always you need to download the app from the Play Store (warning: it’s a paid app, it costs $0.99). Battery Bar requires system overlay permission in order to draw the energy bar on the Android status bar.
Experience
The app basically replaces the plain generic status bar on top with something more eye-catching and colorful. And offers plenty of options to customize it.
For starters, you can choose how the app displays the Battery Bar. For example, you can have it live on top of the status bar or at the bottom or to fill the whole status bar with battery bar color indicating current Battery level. You can center it, or choose to have it displayed to the Right or Left.
The best part is that you get to set the bar’s color segments that help differentiate from 25% remaining or 50% remaining. You also get choose how the bar is divided into the five segments, meaning you can set the percentages. However, the app does not allow you to choose the number of segments. With Battery Bar you’ll have only two options: two segments or five segments – no options in between.
And yes the app plays nice with apps that take up the full screen like YouTube (there’s the option of hiding the bar in landscape if you want that).
Once you set the colors, you can tinker with Thickness and Transparency settings. Once you get started, you can try out many different styles and see which one fits your phone’s display better.
Furthermore, you’re also allowed to pick a charging pulsating animation which will be displayed in the depleted bar(s). You have a choice between things like a moon, little heart or a smiley face and you also get to set the color and the how the animation is displayed (linear, blink, wave).
You can also have the app display the exact battery percent you have left (ex: 82%) in a color of your choosing and align it however you want.
While the app offers a rich palette of customization options, it doesn’t always work smoothly. Perhaps the most annoying part is that the Battery Bar randomly disappears from view, which forces you to fire up the app again.
At other times, after setting the segment’s colors, the app would revert them to default gray without much warning. So I had to start all over again.
There’s also a Theme feature in the Advanced Options section which doesn’t seem to work, most of the time.
Conclusion:
I had fun customizing my Battery bar with the app, especially since it didn’t seem to put a toll on the phone’s performance or battery life. The app in itself is easy to use and offers a wide range of tools to help you create a unique Battery bar. More will probably be added with future updates. However, there are a few issues that need to be addressed like the disappearing bar, before the app can hope to gain popularity among the Android crowd.
The voice assistant that was important enough to have its own dedicated button on the Galaxy S8 was incurred significant delay but that could about to be change.
Bixby has undergone limited testing in the US through an opt-in Beta program but could now be gearing up for a launch worldwide.
In the latest update to the official Samsung Contacts app, the section detailing what has been added in the latest update has a statement that reads “Bixby English global launching”.
This could indicate that Bixby is finally considered ready to launch a English langugage based version in more countries than just the U.S. Obviousy Samsung has made very little vocal indication as to the progress of Bixby or when it may possibly launch so this hint may be just that.
With the Galaxy Note 8 steadily approaching, it would mark an appropritate milestone to ensure that Bixby is ready to accompany the device, especially since the Note 8 is also said to feature a dedicated button.
We’ll keep an eye on this one as we approach the Note 8 launch, but expect to see Bixby launching very soon to the wider population.
After multiple delays the Essential Phone has experienced, it could finally just be round the corner and feels like a launch is imminent.
Andy Ruben was vocal in explaining to those who pre-ordered the device that the initial shipping window was missed due to getting the smartphone certified.
The founder has taken to Twitter again to provide yet another update indicating that the Essential Phone is now in full mass production lending suggestion that a launch is almost here.
He also posted images of the production process showing that it is in full swing.
While interesting, it doesn’t lend any further indication as to when we can expect the Essential Phone to actually ship. No doubt we’ll see more updates as the impending shipping date approaches, whenever that may be.
Bigger isn’t always better when it comes to what makes a good camera. A lot more factors come into play but it seems that the LG V30 could nail one of the most important.
LG tonight teased the V30 saying that it will have “the world’s largest aperture and clearest lens ever to be featured in a smartphone”. While that’s a big claim, the V30 does at least on paper have the specs to back up LG’s statement.
The LG V30 will be the first smartphone to have a f/1.6 aperture and will also feature a glass crystal clean lens, which LG claim together will help capture more light and offer better color reproduction.
LG V30’s camera feature set also includes a dual camera setup with laser detection autofocus, optical image stabilization, and electronic image stabilization. LG also state that the V30 will reduce distortion over the V20 by over 30% and is also a third smaller than its predecessor’s counterpart.
The camera on the V30 is certainly shaping up to be a solid performer and one of the best we’ve seen in smartphones at least in terms of hardware. It’ll be interesting to see what computational mechanics LG pair with this impressive hardware to see if it can top something like the Pixel XL or iPhone 7.
The LG V30 will make its official appearance on August 31st.
For starters, you can choose how the app displays the Battery Bar. For example, you can have it live on top of the status bar or at the bottom or to fill the whole status bar with battery bar color indicating current Battery level. You can center it, or choose to have it displayed to the Right or Left.