Category Archives: Android

HTC One android 4.4 release schedule

Android, Tech News

HTC has released some information regarding their plans to provide an upgrade to Android 4.4 KitKat for the HTC One throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa. According the HTC’s press release:

“Across EMEA, HTC will work with local carriers to begin the roll-out of Android 4.4 with Sense 5.5 for the HTC One from the end of January. The Google Play edition will start to receive the update earlier, starting from the end of November. Details regarding the HTC One Max and HTC One Mini will follow.”

Good to see one of my fav handsets get updated in a relatively short space of time

Paid Video Chats from Google becomes a reality

Android, Apple, Tech News

Helpouts, Google’s combination of Google+ Hangouts, Google Wallet, and its identity tools is now live. A ‘Helpout’ is a Hangout-like video chat, but instead of speaking with a friend, you are connected to a purported expert in whatever it is that you need help with. The tagline that Google has come up with for Helpouts is “real help from real people in real time.”

So would you pay for one of these video chats?

Samsung launches top specification flip phone in China

Android, Tech News

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Samsung and China Telecom revealed the latest flip phone for their customers, the SCH-W2014. The dual-screen flip phone comes equipped with a 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 processor and 2GB of RAM to power Android 4.3 on the device. Samsung loads it up with 32GB of internal storage and the capability to expand that via microSD. The W2014 also has dual-SIM capability.

This phone won’t see the light of day overseas but it does demonstrate how versatile Samsung is when it comes to manufacturing different phones in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

Google Nexus 5 views

Android, Tech News

Google released the Nexus 5 via its own Play Store for a low price of £299 for the 16gb and £339 for the 32gb model. The 8mp camera with optical image stabilisation has been heavily promoted along with Google Now and Google Search being tightly integrated into the handset.

Over the weekend there has been plenty written, tweeted and camera samples posted. It seems that the whole phone is now one large Google Search machine. This is great if you like Google and being honest when integrated into Google Now becomes an interesting proposition. The camera whilst not being super awesome is still above average and for the majority of people will be fine.

If I hadn’t just bought an iPhone 5S and iPad Air and didn’t have close friends and family also on iOS, I would buy the Nexus 5 without blinking an eye. It represents good value and backed up by Google’s services and excellent voice search, search, Google+ photo enhancements and more.

Nexus 5 is official and its cheap, good value but there are compromises

Android, Tech News

Google is now selling the Nexus 5 16gb for £299 and the 32gb for £339 in the UK Play Store.

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The specs are as leaked –

-Android™ 4.4 (KitKat®)
-Screen 4.95″ 1920×1080 display (445 ppi), Full HD IPS ,Corning® Gorilla® Glass 3
-Camera 1.3MP front facing, 8MP rear facing with Optical Image Stabilization
-Size, 69.17 x 137.84 x 8.59 mm
-Weight 4.59 oz (130 g)
-Battery 2,300 mAH
-Talk time up to 17 hours*, Standby time up to 300 hours*, Internet time up to 8.5 hours on Wi-Fi, up to 7 hours on LTE*
Wireless Charging built-in
Audio Output
Built-in speaker
3.5mm stereo audio connector
CPU Qualcomm Snapdragon™ 800, 2.3GHz GPU Adreno 330, 450MHz

There are some early first impressions published over the internet and the verdict so far it is not on par with the build quality of the iPhone 5S or HTC One. It is plasticly, the camera is not as good as it looks on paper. It has an aperture of f/2.5 which is not cutting edge sadly. As a comparison the HTC One is f/2.0, Samsung S4 f/2.4 and the iPhone 5S f/2.2.

But it does represent a lot of phone for your money. You could buy this phone outright and then get a sim only contract.

So who is looking forward to theirs being delivered?

Samsung Galaxy Gear – Impressions

Android, Reviews, Tech News,

I have had the Galaxy Gear with the Note 3 for 48 hours. I didn’t like either device to be honest so returned both items.

To be clear, the Note 3 was too big for my liking but pretty awesome nonetheless. Just simply too big for a phone. So it you like large phones, this is probably one to check out.

As to the Galaxy Gear, well it was clever and geeky and did a lot of things, but I just couldn’t see the point. I lost interest in it after an hour. It didn’t help that I thought it was ugly to look at on my wrist. My wife thought it looked like a kids toy.

HTC ONE MAX – its so big its need big letters

Android, Tech News

The HTC One Max is now available to buy from online retailers, including Clove Technology. Click here for details http://www.clove.co.uk/htc-one-max

To recap the HTC One Max has the same design styling as the HTC One. It includes HTC BlinkFeed, Zoe, BoomSound and TV Remote IR.

It has a 5.9″ Full HD 1080 x 1920 LCD3 screen. It measures in at 164.5 x 82.5 x 10.29 mm. It weighs over 200g. So it is heavy and huge.

Unlike the HTC One it has a removable back cover, giving you access to the SIM card slot and support for micro SD cards up to 64GB.

I imagine in 5 years time, we will think 5.9 inch phones are all too small.

Google adds new cool features to android with – Nexus 5 looking to be a killer phone

Android, Tech News,

Google held an event to highlight some of the key software improvements for android. These will be present in the new Nexus 5, making this handset potentially super amazing. The improvements are as follows –

Hangouts
-Added Single tap location sharing
-Added the use of Animated GIFs
-SMS integration so all your messaging can be in one place. Finally an iMessage competitor.
-Auto Awesome features such as boosting the light of people that are in the Hangout.
-Hangouts On Air – Better planning including a dedicated event page plus special editing features

Photos
– Backup – Backing up photos on Google+ has always been full size by default, but iOS users will get auto backup as well with their next update.
– Highlight – Google+ has been picking out our best photos since Google I/O, but they have improved the algorithm.
– Search – We already could search our photos, but 1,000 additional words have been added so that you can search your images even if they aren’t tagged.
– Editing – Auto Enhance has been around since Google I/O for those that have no time, but Snapseed is also available for those that are more experienced and the Google Nik Collection for the seasoned pros.
– You can now adjust the Auto Enhance setting to Low or High and you can also control it by album. Snapseed adds HDR Scape, which takes any photo and converts them to HDR with one touch.
– Auto Awesome gets two new features – Auto Awesome Action and Auto Awesome Eraser

Auto Awesome Movies
– Google will take your photos and videos from an event and put them all together in one movie set to music. This can be done automatically or manually. It includes stabilization, music, automatic cuts, and effects. Users will have full control for further editing including trimming and how long the video is to be. As to music, you will be able to choose from a predefined set of licenced tunes. This seems like HTC Zoe’s.