Joe has been writing and making videos about mobile tech since 2012 when he worked under the alias of, “MobileCupOfJoe.” After retiring his personal channel, Joe worked for a number of different sites before finding his way to NewGeekGuide. When he isn’t writing or making videos, Joe can be found flying drones and channeling his inner white girl at Starbucks.
Although it may not have the slimmest bezels around, the HTC U11 has proven to be one of the most underrated flagships of 2017. Edge Sense features and Amazon Alexa support help to differentiate the phone from its competitors, and thanks to a filing with the FCC, it appears that Bluetooth 5.0 will be added to the U11 in the near future.
At the beginning of June, Google announced that it was working on an “ad filter” for Chrome that would be fully available for all users starting in 2018. The ad filter’s goal is to block advertisements on websites that are considered to be intrusive, and if you’re running Chrome Canary or Chrome Dev on Android, it looks like you can test out the ad filter now.
Earlier this month, LG announced the Q6 – a mid-range smartphone that’s most notable for its 18:9 bezel-less display, not unlike the G6. No exact release date was confirmed by LG when the phone was first announced, but thanks to a press release from the company, that’s no longer the case.
Google Home has received fairly regular updates since its launch last fall, with one of its latest additions allowing users to play songs that they had either purchased from (or uploaded to) Google Play Music. This allowed Home owners to still listen to tracks on Play Music even if they didn’t have a subscription to the streaming side of the service. Unfortunately for some people, this update has been pretty bumpy since its launch.
Motorola’s Moto G5 Plus has proven itself to be one of the best ways to spend under $300 for an unlocked smartphone this year. It’s fast, built-well, runs on stock Android, and costs a fraction of what you’ll spend for most flagships. We’ve heard rumors and seen leaks for the slightly upgraded Moto G5S Plus, and thanks to Evan Blass, we now have a much better look at the upcoming handset.
Ever since the release of the HTC Dream back in 2008, Android has been growing steadily. Over the weekend, the platform achieved a pretty major milestone when Google Play Services crossed 5 billion downloads on the Google Play Store.
Over the years, I’ve owned a lot of different smartphones from a lot of different brands. However, of all the devices that I’ve ever called my daily driver, the ones that stick out the most are all three generations of the Moto X. The Moto X series has always been about something different, but with the upcoming Moto X4, it’s quite obvious that Lenovo-owned Motorola has lost sight of what the Moto X originally stood for.
Over the years, Samsung’s established a less-than-stellar track record when it comes to software updates due to heavy, custom skins. Thankfully this hasn’t effected Android security patches in the same manner. Starting today, unlocked versions of the Galaxy S8 and S8+ in the United States are receiving the July 2017 security patch.
Despite already creating one of the most impressive smartphones of 2017, Samsung still has two big releases scheduled before the year is over – the Galaxy S8 Active and the Galaxy Note 8. We recently found a full spec sheet for the former of those two phones, and during its earnings report yesterday, Samsung made a few comments on the latter.
When Andy Rubin officially took the wraps off of the Essential Phone in May, I was excited. The father of Android had just announced a brand new phone with a modern design, near bezel-less display, stock Android, and a modular system to go along with it. The Essential Phone sounded like any Android nerd’s dream come true, and while it still is, the company needs to act fast if it wants to hold the attention of its fans and potential customers.
Between its mobile, television, display, appliance, and display divisions, Samsung has loaded itself up with more than enough work. The company is pretty deeply invested in all of these industries, but one that’s recently seen tremendous success is Samsung’s processing chips. Just recently, Samsung was officially titled as the world’s biggest maker of chipsets in Q2 2017.
When it comes to our smartphones, one of the most important components is the camera. This year’s big camera trend has been focused heavily on dual-sensor setups, and the upcoming Essential Phone will be rocking one of its very own. Recently, an engineer from Essential outlined just how the Essential Phone’s camera package will work and why it’s soon going to be one of the best on the market.
Every year, Samsung releases an, “Active” version of its Galaxy S flagship that’s more rugged and durable than its counterpart. Talk about this year’s Galaxy S8 Active has been relatively quiet, but thanks to some recently leaked images on Chinese site Weibo, we now know all of the specifications that the device will be outfitted with when it does eventually launch.
Although Samsung’s biggest releases of the year lie within the Galaxy S and Note series, the company still kicks out plenty of more affordable handsets in between its two major flagship launches. Samsung recently announced the Galaxy J7 earlier this week, and that phone has now made its way to the United States (with some minor spec upgrades) under the name of the Galaxy J7 Pro.
Motorola is expected to release the fourth generation Moto X sometime soon, and while some were expecting to get official details on the phone at Motorola’s New York event earlier this week, that didn’t happen. We likely aren’t too much further from an announcement from the company, but until then, notable leakster Roland Quandt has some details on pricing for the X4 to hold us over.
So far this year, Motorola has announced two entries to its Z series – the Moto Z2 Play and the Moto Z2 Force. The latter was just unveiled earlier this week (and met with less than stellar reception), and the former has been available for Verizon customers for a few weeks. Starting today, you can finally purchase an unlocked model of the Z2 Play through Motorola’s website for use on AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile.
Google Home is capable of a multitude of things, and for a lot of users, one function of Home that’s the most helpful is using it to control smart home devices. Philips Hue light bulbs are the most popular connected lights on the market, and according to numerous reports on the Google Home Help Forum, they simply aren’t working for a lot of people.
Back at Google I/O in May, Google announced that it would soon be introducing standalone VR headsets alongside the existing ones that are powered by your smartphone. HTC recently announced a new VR headset coming to China, and from what we’ve seen so far, it looks a whole lot like a forthcoming Daydream headset that should be available in the States later this year.
Along with Android 7.1 Nougat, Google added App Shortcuts for the first time. The ability to hold down on an app icon and jump to a certain portion of an app right from your home screen can be very useful. While it’s great that WhatsApp is gaining this feature, the App Shortcuts that are available are, interesting, to say the least.
Ever since the Galaxy S6, one of the unique and powerful features of Samsung’s flagship smartphones has been Samsung Pay. The ability to use your phone to pay for things using both NFC and older MST technology essentially makes Samsung’s payment service accepted anywhere, and according to a new report from Gadgets360, Samsung might be working on bringing this technology to non-Samsung phones.
LG’s position in the mobile industry has been disappointing over the past few quarters to say the least. The company lost a total of $132 million in the second quarter of last year as a result of the G5’s lukewarm reception, but when rumors for the G6 first started pouring in, things looked like they were about to get better.
LG was the first company to market with a near bezel-less 18:9 smartphone, and for all intents and purposes, the G6 is one of the better handsets the company’s released in recent memory. Unfortunately, looking at LG’s earnings report for Q2 2017, it looks like it might be too little too late.
When it comes to Android TV, there are two main ways of viewing your content – streaming content directly through apps on the operating system itself, or by casting it via your phone or tablet. Casting content to Android TV hasn’t always been the smoothest process around, but it looks like Google is finally doing something about that.
The working world is vastly different today than it was just a few short years ago. Due to the rise of robots, artificial intelligence, and other technological advancements, more traditional jobs are being replaced with ones that require much different knowledge and experience. According to a report from USA Today, Google is pledging a total of $50 million in order to help better prepare individuals for the current jobs market.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Budget phones are a dime a dozen these days, and over in China, Xioami is known for kicking out heaps of them. The Mi5X is the latest affordable offering from the company, and for a price of around $220 USD, it brings quite a lot to the table.
Expand
Expanding
Close
