Category Archives: Android

Samsung unveils the Galaxy S2 Tablet – Ultra thin – Full details

Android, Tech News,

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“Samsung Electronics announced the global launch of the Galaxy Tab S2, the most immersive Samsung tablet to-date. Samsung’s newest Galaxy tablet continuously delivers a stunning Super AMOLED display perfectly optimized for reading and viewing any type of digital content. The Galaxy Tab S2 is stylishly designed with the thinnest and lightest metal frame of its size on the market and packs powerful performance features to offer enhanced usability, empowering users with new and improved choices in productivity and multitasking. At just 5.6mm thin and only 389g (9.7 -inch) and 265g (8.0 -inch) weight.

The tablet also presents deeper contrast and more precise detail to provide a best-in-class reading experience with the Super AMOLED display delivering 94% of natural tones to show true-to-life colors (Adobe RGB color standard). The tablet comes fully equipped and preloaded with Microsoft Office Solutions** for ultimate productivity on the road, such as creating and editing documents, while conveniently storing up to 100GB of files on the cloud via OneDrive for two years for free.

For enhanced manageability, the Galaxy Tab S2 is built with a touch-enabled Fingerprint Scanner for hassle-free authentication. In addition, the Galaxy Tab S2 offers Multitasking, allowing users to view and run two apps simultaneously. Also with Pop-Up Window, users can easily navigate between multiple apps at once. The Galaxy Tab S2 also provides an improved storage structure that makes locating files simpler than ever.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 will come in a variety of connectivity, storage and size options: 9.7-inch and 8.0-inch versions with Wi-Fi, or Wi-Fi and LTE, available in 32 or 64GB with MicroSD up to 128GB. It will be available in global markets, starting from August, 2015.”

Another tablet from Samsung, sure looks good, but the price will be the key decider which is unknown at present.

Source – http://global.samsungtomorrow.com/samsung-unveils-galaxy-tab-s2-the-essential-tablet-for-experiencing-digital-content/

Xiaomi Mi Note Pro – new features following software update

Android, Reviews, Tech News,

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The Xiaomi Mi Note Pro has a phenomenal audio system for listening to music via headphones.

There is Hi-Fi audio toggle on or off. This is pure audio quality and in this mode will drive your 600ohm headphones. So if you have Sennheiser, AKG, Sony or Oppo Planar Magnetic headphones you really want to use this mode. It’s something special. It works with all music apps and streaming services that I have tested it with including Google Music.

In the software update received last night the headphone enhancer side got updated. This now includes the Mi Headphones which I’m using as I write this post.

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The difference toggling this setting on is amazing.

There is no other phone I have ever used that is so good with music quality via headphones.

Another trick I learnt with MIUI is notifications. A badge appears on the app icon. Double tap the app icon and the notifications for that app appear. Neat!

Another aspect I find impressive is weekly updates !!

Samsung Galaxy A8 – Full Specs of the new phone from Samsung

Android, Tech News,

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Samsung has taken the wraps of the Samsung Galaxy A8. It is 5.9mm thin! But it has a 3,050mAh battery still powering a 1080p 5.7 super amoled screen. This on paper looks like a really good phone. Other specs include a Snapdragon 615, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB or 32GB internal storage with microSD expansion up to 128gb micro sd card. The rear camera is 16MP main camera, fromt 5MP f/1.9. A fingerprint scanner is included too

Source and more info – http://www.samsung.com/cn/consumer/mobile-phones/smart-phone/galaxy-a/SM-A8000ZWDCHC?CID=AFL-hq-mul-0813-

Oppo just tweeted details of their special pricing on Amazon Primeday

Amazon, Android, Tech News,

If you want to bag a reduced Oppo smartphone, Amazon may be the answer if you are a Prime Member. This Wednesday is Primeday, which is billed by Amazon as bigger deals than Black Friday.

This is one of the deals on offer from Oppo.

LG G4 – 11 Themes for the Default Launcher

Android, Tech News

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Power on your LG G4 and you are faced with the LG G4 bright square icon theme. Some people will hate it and others will love it. LG has you covered, as you can head over to LG Smartworld and download a few others.

First up is “Suits”.

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With each of these screen shots I have left the theme wallpaper alone. With Suits theme it is better to use a near black wallpaper.

Another theme from LG Smartworld is “Puzzle v2” . I think this is worse than the default theme.

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Fortunately with a quick search on Google Play and via Google you can discover some more pleasing themes. These are the best I have found so far. This one is called “LG Home Flat”.

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Next up is “Thin Blue Line”.

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For all you MIUI fans, this one is for you. “MIUI Theme”.

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Samsung fan people, time to rejoice. Here is the “S6 Theme”. I quite like this. I suppose I have got used to Samsung icons over the years.

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HTC Sense UI theme is next. I don’t like this theme.

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From the LG Smartworld is “Lego v2” theme. I can’t decide yet what I think about this one.

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But without a doubt my favourite it “LG Home Lollipop”.

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So which theme do you prefer?

Xiaomi Mi Band – First 10 days review

Android, Reviews, Wearables, ,

So it’s now been 10 days using the Mi Band. The standout feature has to be the battery life. It is still on its first charge and it’s only lost 17% after 10 days. At this rate it will last nearly 60 days on a single and its first charge.  This in turn means that I will only ever have to recharge it 6 or 7 times in a year.

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Now it is possible to have a more frequent battery recharging if you start using all the notifications, sleep alarms and other third party apps that can integrate notifications and use the LEDs. This reduces apparently the battery life to a mere 30 days. 30 days at worst case scenario. Wow. 

If there is one reason alone to get this, it is its stand out battery feature. My Fitbit Charge HR needs charging every 2-3 days. My LG Watch Urbane gets charge daily. 

The Mi Band syncs with Google Fit if required and also WeChat. It doesn’t integrate with anything else. It tracks steps and sleep automatically. It has graphs showing you what steps you walked each day. And not much else. However, there are 2 versions of apps/firmware. If you use the Chinese app you will get a lot more functionality but no syncing to Google Fit. The Google Fit sync version gets updated regularly so hopefully in time the two apps will has less difference in features. 

Price. Cheap. £20 maximum. Depends on currency and where you buy. Value. Bargain. 

Negatives so far. On my first day wearing it, I was walking on Dartmoor and my rucksack straps caught the tracker module without me realising when I took my rucksack off and pulled it out of the band. I realised it was missing and spent 10 minutes trying to find it on Dartmoor. I did find it but I was lucky. I have had the band itself come off my wrist as well. So my advice is to be aware that it might de clasp itself or you could lose the module. 

There is an optional leather band which is far securer as it uses 4 screws to lock the module in. 

Overall, it’s ability to not need a recharge every few days is fantastic and it does what is says on the tin. 

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LG G4 – Army Warfare on Dartmoor

Android, Tech News, , ,

Army Helicopter operations on Dartmoor #LGG4 #Sheep #Tors #Zooming

I was driving across Dartmoor yesterday evening and I spotted an army helicopter. I stopped a took the above photo.

And another shot below. Notice the startled sheep looking at the helicopter too.

Army Helicopter operations on Dartmoor #LGG4 #Sheep #Tors #Zooming

So I wondered how close I could zoom in with the G4 and capture the helicopter moving along with its blades. Result is below.

Army Helicopter operations on Dartmoor #LGG4 #Sheep #Tors #Zooming

And then further down the road there was another helicopter. I took this in portrait so you could gain some perspective against the moor.

Army Helicopter operations on Dartmoor #LGG4 #Sheep #Tors #Zooming

Not a bad sequence of shots!

LG Watch Urbane – Posh Edition

Android, Reviews, Tech News, Wearables,

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Change the strap and the watch face and you have a new watch.

The milanese metal strap arrived yesterday. It was so easy to swap over. I now have the black strap that came with the Urbane, a lovely brown crocodile leather and a sports orange strap.

Below are the other straps in my possession.

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Without a doubt the metal milanese strap is my favourite! What is crazy is that the cost of all 3 additional watch straps cost less than one of the cheapest straps sold by Apple for their Watch.

Xiaomi Mi 4i – Review

Android, Reviews, Tech News,

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Welcome to my review of the Xiaomi Mi 4i.

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First let’s take a quick look at the key specifications –

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– Dimensions – 138.1 x 7.8 x 69.6mm
– Colours – white, blue, black, pink, yellow
– 13MP rear Sony/Samsung camera, 5-element lens, f/2.0 aperture,Two-tone flash, Supports manual mode, real-time HDR, Torch, Supports 1080p video recordings
– 5MP front camera 5-element lens, f/1.8 aperture 80° wide angle lens, Beautify with 36 smart beauty profiles
– 5″ Sharp/JDI Full HD display 1920 x 1080 resolution, 441 PPI 95% NTSC colour gamut, Fully laminated Corning® Concore™ glass, All-new Sunlight display with hardware-level pixel contrast adjustments,IPS 178° wide viewing angle
– Snapdragon™ 64-bit octa-core processor 2nd gen Snapdragon™ 615 CPU, 1.7GHz Adreno 405 GPU
– 2GB RAM LPDDR3, 16GB Flash eMMC
– 3120mAh all-day battery
– Sony/Samsung/ATL 4.4V lithium-ion polymer battery
– SIM slots – 2 x micro SIM slots
– Networks – 4GFDD-LTE,TD-LTE B3 / B7 /B38 / B39 / B40 / B41, 3GTD-SCDMA, WCDMA 1900 / 2000MHz
850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100MHz, 2GGSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900MHz
– Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n, 802.11ac wave 2 include MU- MIMO, supports 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands
– Bluetooth 4.1
– Sensors – Compass, Gravity, Gyroscope, Light, Hall, Proximity
– GPS, GLonass, BDS
– Supports: H.264–Baseline/Main/High, MPEG4–simple/ASP, H.264–0,
VC-1/WMV9–Simple/Main, VC-1–Advanced
– Supports: PCM, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+ , MP3, WMA – V9 and V10, AMR – NB and WB, FLAC, APE

Phone Basics

The Mi 4i looks like an iPhone 5C. But that is where the similarities stop. Dual SIM and running Android with Google pre installed. I have installed a huge selection of my apps. See below.

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The 64 bit Snapdragon 615 processor provides a smooth affair and produces an AnTuTu score of 38,000.

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The 5 inch 1080p screen has good viewing angles and sunlight visibility due to a special display. The new Sunlight display has hardware-level pixel contrast adjustments and a 178° wide viewing angle. The loudspeaker is on the rear and maxes out at 84db. It is a clear sound but being on the back is not the best spot as it can get covered quite easily. Headphone audio is good including bluetooth too. USB OTG is supported.

Camera

The Mi 4i has a 13MP rear Sony camera, with a 5-element lens, f/2.0 aperture, and supports 1080p video recordings. The front camera is a 5MP front camera 5-element lens, f/1.8 aperture 80° wide angle lens, beautify with 36 smart beauty profiles.

The camera app is a familiar Xiaomi affair. Plenty of modes and options including a manual mode. See below.

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In use, I have found the camera app rather easy to use. Plenty of options to choose from and a decent auto mode.

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The quality of the shots is good at this price point. I really like the macro shots, but again similar to the Mi Note Pro, panoramic shots are tiny in resolution being around 1mp. A number of third party apps will take higher resolution photos.

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Camera samples

The results overall are rather good. There are 2 different HDR modes which are shown below after the normal shot.
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And now some random camera shots.

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MIUI

Below are screen shots from the MIUI v6 skin. The entire look can be changed with an extensive theme store. The MIUI functionality is again similar to that found on the Mi Note Pro minus a few features, but nonetheless still plenty of options. Noteworthy are the one handed mode, headphone audio options, screen calibration and the endless options for the inbuilt apps.

Conclusion

The Xiaomi Mi 4i is another example of a well built, decent phone and competitively priced for around £200. It has a good camera and audio quality and backed up with a thriving community. It is one of the few android phones that is able to be used one handed with ease and consequently makes this a pleasure to use.