Cam Bunton, Editor at NewGeekGuide – Cam has been passionate about tech since his dad bought the family’s first Commodore AMIGA back in the late 80’s. He’s been in the tech industry (writing and making videos) since 2010, and joined NewGeekGuide as the resident video producer and product reviewer in 2015. He sometimes writes news and reviews for 9to5Mac too.
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If you thought Amazon’s 2-hour delivery was impressive, the company has teamed up with OnePlus and OlaCabs in India to make 2 hours seem like an age to wait. OlaCabs, similar to Uber, lets you order transport via a simple smartphone app and has joined forces with OnePlus to offer 15-minute OnePlus X deliveries in 7 Indian cities.
The Huawei Watch is quite possibly one of this year’s best surprises. We didn’t know Huawei was working on an Android Wear watch until they showed it to us at MWC, and when it did, we knew it was going to take some beating. Now that it’s on the market and I’ve had my time with the final, released product, I can safely say my first impressions have lasted. This watch is fantastic, and easily a contender for the title of “best Android Wear watch.”
TAG Heuer has had to almost double its production to meet demand for its first Android Wear luxury smartwatch. The TAG Heuer Connected is based on the design of its popular Carrera range and comes loaded with an Intel processor and runs Google’s wearable OS. Retailers and various other resellers have requested a total of 100,000 units of the watch, which is way more than what the company expected upon announcement…
Chinese smartphone manufacturer, Oppo, has revealed its plans for the holiday season. For seven days between December 7th and December 13th, customers will be able to visit Oppo’s virtual advent calendar and claim a new badge every single day. The more different badges you have by the end of the seven days, the more discount you get on an Oppo R7 series purchase from the Oppo Style online store.
Users who play every day and end up with 7 different badges will have a chance to win one of two Oppo R7s handsets. The first two players to collect 7 will be the winners, so you’ll have to be as early as possible to be in with a shot. If you end up with 5 different badges, Oppo will award you an €80 voucher to use on OppoStyle.com. Players with 3 badges will get a €40 voucher and players with just one badge get €20. Those who share the game on social media using the #OPPOXmas hashtag will be entered to win a selfie stick or VOOC battery charger.
Rules and links the game will go live on December 7th with details on which regions are eligible for prizes.
Google is at the forefront of machine learning, and has already brought some of its AI-powered technology to apps like Gmail and Search. It’s also keen to get its tools in to the hands of developers and recently made Tensorflow machine open source. As part of that focus on giving developers the resources, it’s also launched the Cloud Vision API, giving devs the ability to build apps (and robots) which recognize objects and facial expressions, then respond to them…
While the door-busting Black Friday weekend deals are long gone, there are still some great discounts out there for holiday shoppers. One of today’s featured tech deals on eBay is a heavily discounted Lenovo IdeaPad N20p Chromebook. The Chrome OS-based laptop normally retails at around $300, and is currently available for just $170 in limited quantity. As a reference, the same Chromebook is priced at $290 on Amazon, where even used models are more expensive than the eBay deal.
Spec-wise, the Lenovo IdeaPad N20p is respectable. It has an 11.6-inch 1366 x 768 resolution, 10-point multitouch display which can swivel around 300. Inside, there’s a 2.16GHz quad-core Intel Celeron processor, 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage. It has a plethora of I/O ports too; there’s a USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 port, SD card slot, mini HDMI out, 3.5mm jack and the necessary power input. It also has built-in stereo speakers, Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac. Not a bad spec-list for a device that costs less than $200.
If the Lenovo IdeaPad doesn’t take your fancy (even at this price), and you’re hunting for a Chromebook this holiday season, we’ve compiled a list of what we think are the best Chromebooks for any budget.
Back when Samsung officially announced the Galaxy Note 5 and its dual-curved partner, the S6 Edge Plus, it disappointed a lot of hopeful customers by announcing the S-Pen-equipped phablet would not be released in Europe. At least, not immediately. According to two separate reports, Samsung has plans to finally bring the Note 5 to mainland Europe and the UK next month.
According to a report by Dutch-language tech site, Tweakers, Google is planning to start selling the Pixel C Android tablet from December 8th on the Play Store. The site claims that it will be offering both the 32GB and 64GB variants of Pixel C in the Netherlands on that date, suggesting we’ll see a global launch next week too. If true, it’d be highly unlikely that Google would release a product in the Netherlands before major markets like the US, UK, Germany and France.
While we can’t vouch for the site’s information, it certainly fits in with Google’s plans to launch it by the end of the year. Pricing will purportedly be €499 and €599 respectively for the 32GB and 64GB models, while the keyboard will allegedly cost €169 in Europe. In the US, prices will be $499, $599 and $149 for the two tablets and keyboard.
The Pixel C is Google’s first attempt at making its own tablet hardware and, in many ways, replaces the Nexus tablet range. While we may yet see another Nexus tablet, Google has seen a need to make its own powerful, pure Android tablet with a detachable keyboard to compete with the likes of Apple and Microsoft. Google’s all-metal Pixel C features a 10.2-inch screen boasting a resolution of 2560×1800 pixels and a quad-core processor made by NVIDIA. There’s also 3GB RAM, full USB Type-C support and it runs Android Marshmallow.
The keyboard has its own built-in battery and connects to the tablet via Bluetooth, and will come in two different finishes: Leather and Aluminum.
OnePlus has just announced what many hopeful owners have been wanting to hear for a long time: From December 5th (and forever), anyone will be able to buy the OnePlus 2 without an invite. The company’s co-founder, Carl Pei announced the news on the company’s official forums today. Customers looking to buy will only have to hit OnePlus’ store page and select to buy, and won’t be required to enter a code.
From the beginning, OnePlus has maintained that its invite system was necessary when the company started out to help it manage inventory, and ensure it didn’t have tons of unsold stock lying around eating its margins. While the OnePlus 2’s invite system was comfortably better than the OPO’s, it still left customers frustrated. But, as we’ve seen in the past, the company has been open about its own shortcomings, and is always aiming to improve all aspects of its operations.
The invite system has been crucial to letting us scale our operations and has given our fans a unique way to share OnePlus with the people in their lives. But we are always trying to enhance the OnePlus experience for you and taking risks to push ourselves and show real improvements. That’s why we’re making the OnePlus 2 invite-free … forever!
As well as making the OP2 invite-free forever, OnePlus has a few discounts and offers going live on the same day. Between December 5-7, the OnePlus X is also going to be invite-free too, while a bunch of accessories will be discounted. OnePlus 2 StyleSwap covers (like the ones we featured in a video) are 50% off, some OnePlus One accessories are 90% off while all other accessories will be subject to 10% discount.
We’re well in to holiday shopping season now. Assuming you’ve picked up some of our recommended Android phones, smartwatches and Chromebooks, there are still some great novelty items out there for the Android fan in your life. Whether you’re looking for collectibles, clothing that shows off your allegiance to all-things Google, or something fun, we’ve got you covered with our list of the best little items to buy for Android fans…
Yesterday it was revealed that a privacy group (EFF) had a filed a complaint with the FTC claiming that Google “deceptively tracks students’ internet browsing”. Specifically, the group claims that Google is breaching a Student Privacy Pledge that it signed in January. One issue with Chrome OS in particular is Chrome Sync, a feature which enables users to have the same bookmarks, logins and other data across various devices with the Chrome Browser installed. As you would expect, it didn’t take long for Google to deny claims of wrongdoing…
If you’re an HTC One M8 owner, you’ll be glad to know that the Android Marshmallow update is rolling out from today to unlocked devices. Mo Versi, the company’s VP of Product Management confirmed the rollout on his personal Twitter handle yesterday afternoon.
[tweet https://twitter.com/moversi/status/672105656489349120 align=’center’]
Sadly, if you’re using a carrier-locked version, or if you’re in a market outside the Americas, you’ll have to wait a little longer. Those devices almost always take more time to be updated as carrier approval and testing needs to be done before pushing the software out to users:
[tweet https://twitter.com/urbanstrata/status/672114884520226816 align=’center’]
It’s impressive that HTC has managed to start rolling out Marshmallow updates so soon after the software became officially available. Even the virtually stock Motorola handsets are yet to receive the official update, although they are currently subject to software soak testing for some users.
HTC, of course, was the first Android OEM to release a non-Nexus smartphone running Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box. The One A9 was announced a few weeks ago and makes full use of Google’s latest mobile operating system, including the baked-in fingerprint sensor support and Android Pay, Doze mode and more. No other manufacturer has managed to do that yet.
Since the One A9 was announced we’ve seen several new handsets including the likes of Samsung’s new A-series, Huawei’s Mate 8 and the Oppo R7s among many others, all of which have (or will) hit the market running a version of Android Lollipop. HTC, clearly then, is ahead of the curve with software updates and that’s something to be applauded.
It’s not quite the end of the year yet, meaning we still have a few more weeks for companies to squeeze in some product announcements before 2016 rolls in. Samsung has just officially announced its Galaxy A-series of phones for next year and — from the spec sheets alone — they look like decent alternatives to pricey flagships…
Just a few days ago, Samsung replaced the head of its mobile division; removing JK Shin and replacing him with Koh Dong-jin. In his first interview as mobile division chief, Koh stated that he’s expecting 2016 to be a tough year for handset sales, but still believes that no major changes are needed just yet…
Google has recently been on a major push to bring its 360-degree and VR experience to as many people as possible, and in as many services as applicable. Most recently, that was bringing some awesome 360-degree views of areas effected by climate change to Street View. Today, the company has announced that it will be launching 360 tours of popular performing arts locations.
You can browse performances and everything that goes on on- and off-stage at more than 60 institutions—including the world famous Carnegie Hall, to the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Berliner Philharmoniker. Moving east, I’ve selected some highlights from our partners in Asia-Pacific—the Queensland Performing Arts Center in Australia, the Dilli Gharana and Natural Streets For Performing Arts Foundation in India, Aomori Nebuta Matsuri in Japan, and the National Theatre of Korea, National Gugak Center and Kukkiwon in Korea.
It’s an incredible collection of imagery, photos and Street View-like tours of some great cultural locations. There are tons of backstage photos and images of classic performances, costumes and exhibitions in a host of venues across the globe. If you’re in to the performing arts, it seems a fantastic resource to dig in to.
Rumors about Samsung’s next mid-range metal smartphone have been circling the web for a few months now. While most has been speculation and sketchy leaks, the device has finally made an official pre-launch appearance on TENAA, China’s equivalent of the FCC. As usual, the listing comes with the customary front, back and side profile images as well as a collection of important specifications…
According to one Reddit user, Google is now seemingly beginning to allow users to part-pay for items using their Google Play Store credit. Previously, if you didn’t have enough credit to cover the entire cost of a download, you couldn’t use it. It’s particularly frustrating if an app or download is only a few cents more than what’s in your balance. If you don’t have enough, it usually defaults to your registered credit card to pay the full amount, leaving your Google Play balance untouched.
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Back when it introduced the new Moto 360 range, Motorola also showed off a brand new sports-focused version of its popular Android Wear smartwatch. Unlike the regular Moto 360 though, it wasn’t available right after launch. In a blog post today, the company has finally given us an official price and release date for the fitness wearable…
Back in September, LG announced a brand new all-metal entry-level smartphone named the LG Class. The idea was to bring a more premium looking device to customers with limited budgets. With its quad-core processor, 5-inch HD display and Lollipop-based OS, the smartphone certainly promised to be decent. Today, the Korean manufacturer has announced that the phone will be coming to more markets, albeit with a different name.
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BlackBerry announced this morning that it’s pushing the first major software update to its new Android customers. The recently launched BlackBerry PRIV update weighs in at around 475MB and features a number of improvements as well as the regular security update promised by the company. Anyone who purchased their PRIV unlocked through ShopBlackberry will start to see the software update from today, while carrier-purchased PRIVs will receive the software from December 7th…
Android smartphone maker OnePlus is no stranger to unusual marketing tactics. Whether it’s because it’ll only sell phones to those with an invitation, asks customers to trade in their iPhone or Samsung phones for one of its devices, or by leaving out features many Android fans love, it seems to promote discussion with whatever it does. Its latest move is equally interesting, to say the least…
Google’s latest Chrome feature includes more ways to improve your web browsing experience by reducing data consumption by up to 70%. Chrome’s Data Saver achieves the impressive consumption savings by blocking images when the web page initially loads, although it does give users the opportunity to manually select to show images if they want to. Google announced the development in a blog post yesterday…
A patent recently published by the USPTO and unearthed by Patently Mobile reveals Samsung could have plans to design and build foldable, bendable and scrollable devices with various designs. Of course, the technology underpinning this entire exploration is a flexible display, which made it in to mainstream smartphones a couple of years ago with the Galaxy Round and LG G Curve. More recently, Samsung used it in the Galaxy S6 Edge, but if these designs eventually make it to market, they’ll make the S6 Edge look dull…
In order to help monitor and show the effects climate change is having on the world around us, Google has teamed up with a number of global organizations to photograph various areas using its 360-degree Trekker camera. Using Street View in Google Maps, you can now take tours of a remote Manitoba habitat, some of the Amazonian rainforest and a Californian nature reserve…
