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.
Without an invite, buying a OnePlus 2 has been pretty much impossible up until now. Today, however, the company has made its ‘2016 flagship killer’ available invite-free on Amazon India to local customers.
The open sale is only live until Friday, when the company will launch its global Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend holiday deals. Those planning to order are limited to just one device each, costing 24,999 Indian Rupees (roughly $377 USD).
OnePlus has been both praised and criticized for its use of an invite-only system for purchasing its smartphones. Whichever side of the fence you sit on, when you actually want to buy one for yourself, having to wait for an invite can be a frustrating experience. Despite that, the experience has arguably been better with the OnePlus 2. It’s already held a couple of open sale days, has sent more invites out, even extending their expiration and introduced a new extended warranty to make it a more pleasant buying experience.
Just a couple of weeks after the huge tablet was officially launched, the Samsung Galaxy View is already being sold at $100 off its original full retail price. Initially, the 18.4-inch Android tablet was being offered for $599 despite having decidedly mid-range specifications. At $500, the device is much more palatable. Although — being a very niche product — it’s not likely to sell by the millions.
The Samsung Galaxy View runs Android 5.1 Lollipop, features a full HD resolution screen and is powered by a 1.6GHz octa-core processor. There’s 2GB RAM and 32GB storage, which you can expand up to 128GB using a MicroSD card. Samsung boasts that it can be used for 8 hours straight without needing to be charged.
From the outset, it’s been clear this device is primarily designed to be a multimedia hub that you can move around. It’s far too big to be a regular tablet you take everywhere with you. However, to stream video in any room in your house, it’s ideal. Rather than having a TV or screen in every room, you can pick up the Galaxy View and take it with you to the kitchen, bedroom, or wherever else you might want to catch up on Daredevil, or Jessica Jones. To boost the multimedia experience, there’s a pair of 4W speakers on the back.
If you want a huge tablet, or second/portable screen to take around the house, the Galaxy View is available now for $499 on Amazon.
At the September launch event, Google put heavy emphasis on its recently launched web store being the sole place to buy the latest Nexus devices in the United States. That looks to be changing, however, as the Nexus 5X is now available for purchase from Amazon and at B&H Photo Video.
All storage configurations and colors are currently available at both stores, with B&H throwing in a free tempered glass screen protector and expedited shipping (1-3 business days).
It’s unknown is if the Nexus 6P will also become available in other stateside stores. The larger Nexus saw early availability constraints from Google and Huawei’s stores, though that has now cleared up and the phone is available through the Google Store in all options.
Previous Nexus devices have been sold in carriers stores and at other retail locations like Best Buy, and that is still the case outside the US.
Amazon has announced that its popular Black Friday sale event will begin this week, and last eight days. From Friday, new deals will be added “as often as every five minutes” for eight straight days leading right up until Black Friday. What’s more, the company will offer 10 ‘Deals of the Day’ on Thanksgiving with ten more on Black Friday…
Update: The device appears to have sold out already as the Amazon listing now shows the it as unavailable.
BlackBerry’s venture into the Android marketplace has gradually been making its way into the United States via carrier stores and websites, but now the device has become available in an unlocked fashion via Amazon. The device is available on Amazon now, with free Prime shipping, for the standard $699 price tag.
Buying the Priv via Amazon offers several incentives, including free two-day shipping and, in some states, a tax-free purchase. The $699 sticker price, however, doesn’t offer any discounts over how much you’d get the device for from other retailers like AT&T, although the model sold on Amazon is unlocked.
Specifications of BlackBerry’s first Android device include Android 5.1, a 5.4-inch Gorilla Glass 4 display plus a slide-out physical keyboard, an 18MP back shooter, a 3410 mAh battery, and 32GB storage expandable to 2TB with the microSD card slot. The Priv also. of course, features a DTEK app from BlackBerry that keeps an eye on the security level of your device.
You can read our review of the BlackBerry Priv here. By no means is the device perfect, but for those who want a physical keyboards its one of the very, very few devices to offer one. Head over to Amazon to purchase the Priv now.
A Google engineer by the name of Benson Leung is one of the many proponents of USB Type-C at the Mountain View company, and he’s now doing us the kind service of reviewing dozens of third-party Type-C cables on Amazon. Why? Because some of the cables coming from a variety of manufacturers could be “dangerous,” according to Leung, and are likely less-than-functional…
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Following through on a threat made earlier this month, Amazon has pulled Google’s Chromecast hardware from its online stores, regardless of whether it was being sold by Amazon directly or third-party vendors in Amazon’s Marketplace.
Amazon notified third-party merchants that it planned to remove Chromecasts and Apple TVs from its listings, claiming an interest in reducing “consumer confusion” over streaming media players that don’t “interact well with Prime Video,” Amazon’s streaming video service. Chromecast and Apple TV pages currently lead to 404 Document Not Found error pages, while attempts to search for the products now redirect to Amazon’s own Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, PlayStation TV, and a collection of off-brand alternatives. Certain Chromecast accessories remain available for purchase, however…
The “Amazon Music with Prime Music” app has today been updated with some of its most oft-requested features. The big one, and the one that people have been wanting practically since Prime Music launched, is the ability to store offline music on a device’s SD card for offline playback. The update also brings Android Wear support, and other, more minor enhancements…
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With the holiday season looming, retailers and manufacturers are clamoring to sell as many products as they can. That means two things: There are new products on the market, and the older ones are being heavily discounted. Whether you’re looking to snag a great former-flagship for less than retail price, or pick an entry level phone as cheaply as possible, you’re not short of options. Our roundup of today’s best deals includes a twelve dollar smartphone and the LG G Flex 2 among others…
Not long ago, BLU announced its brand new flagship Android phone which — by its own standards — is highly specced and priced. The BLU Pure XL is a 6-inch monster with a QHD screen, costs $349 and has finally landed on Amazon.
By any standards, the specs are pretty solid. The 6-inch display on the front has a resolution of 2560 x 1440, giving it a pixel density of 490ppi. Powering the phone is the Helio X10 octa-core 2GHz processor, paired with 3GB RAM and a PowerVR GPU. What’s more, its sapphire crystal-coated primary camera boasts 24 megapixels, dual-tone flash and optical image stabilization. If all that wasn’t enough, it supports 24-bit/192kHz audio, quick charging and has a fingerprint sensor which can detect and verify your fingerprint in less than 10ms. It also has an 8MP wide angle front camera and 64GB internal storage which can be expanded up to a further 64GB.
Back in September when it was announced, the phone seemed like a no-brainer purchase for just 64GB. It’s not often you get an all-metal phone with these specs for anywhere near that price. Last year’s Nexus 6, however, has recently seen a huge drop in price thanks to the arrival of the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X. On eBay you can pick up a Nexus 6 for just $300, while Amazon is still selling them for $349.
This is kind of humorous. At Amazon’s AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas last week, Amazon Web Services Vice President of Infrastructure Jerry Hunter accidentally showed a generic picture of one of Google’s data centers. This is the kind of minor mishap that usually goes completely unnoticed, but not this time. Google’s Urs Hölzle came out on Google+ late yesterday to point out the mistake, taking the opportunity to brag about Google Cloud Platform as “the world’s best infrastructure”…
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With Google having recently announced the brand new LG and Huawei-made Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P, it could be the perfect time to pick up last year’s “Pure Android” flagship. The Motorola Nexus 6 recently got dropped to just $349 on Amazon, but a third-party reseller on eBay has just undercut that price by a cool $50. You can buy last year’s stock Android flagship for just $299.
As far as specs go, the Nexus 6 still holds up really well. In fact, it’s still my daily driver. That’s mostly to do with how smoothly it runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow which I’ve been running since Dev Preview 2. It has a huge 5.9-inch QuadHD display, stereo front-facing speakers, 3220mAh battery with QuickCharge and Qi charging support along with Snapdragon’s powerful quad-core 805-series processor.
The eBay listing notes that quantities are limited, so if you’re wanting to snag the N6 as cheaply as possible, you should do so before inventory vanishes.
A woman receives a package from Amazon that presumably does not contain a Chromecast
If you’re looking to buy an Chromecast online, you may need to look somewhere other than Amazon in the very near future. A new report from Bloomberg claims that an internal email at indicates the retailer will block sales of Google’s streaming device because it doesn’t support Amazon Prime Video.
Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.
If you pre-ordered the Huawei Watch, you might be interested in knowing that your order has most likely shipped. If you haven’t ordered a Huawei Watch yet, though, and you plan to, I have especially good news: The device is now available for shipping within 1-2 business days from the Google Store, Amazon, and other outlets.
The Huawei Watch starts at $350, with model availability varying between outlets. The Google Store, for instance, only offers the “Silver” Huawei Watch with a Milanese-like bracelet. Amazon, however, offers three different variants, black w/ link bracelet, silver w/ leather band, and stainless w/ stainless link bracelet, at $350, $400, and $450, respectively.
The Huawei Watch packs a 1.4-inch screen in a 42mm body and a 400 x 400 resolution screen at 286 pixels per inch. It sports 512 MB of RAM, 4 GB of on-board storage, a gyroscope & accelerometer, PPG (photoplethysmogram), and a barometer. There’s also a built-in mic, with all of this powered by a 300 mAh battery.
We have lots of Huawei Watch content on the way, so keep and eye out for our full review and more.
A press render of Amazon’s upcoming 10-inch Kindle Fire tablet has been leaked ahead of its alleged launch. Although we’re light on specs, the renders show the (rather uninspiring) design of the next Kindle Fire. The image comes from well-known and usually reliable leaker, Evan Blass on Twitter.
From the renders, it appears the next Kindle Fire will have a completely flat front and back, with a slightly more angled, metallic frame around the edges. We can just about make out the power/sleep key on the top edge as well as the front and rear camera. Amazon’s branding is expectedly prominent, although the software is a completely different story. If the render is accurate, it looks like Amazon’s new software will be much more in line with standard Android. Or, at the very list, Amazon software disguised as standard Android. Whatever the software is, it’s a far cry from Amazon’s previous efforts.
Previous Kindle Fire tablets have featured a cover flow-like user interface, pushing Amazon apps and content to the forefront, similar to the UI found on the Amazon Fire TV and Stick. If Evan’s leak is anything close to the finished product (which it normally is), it’ll certainly make a refreshing change from a user experience perspective.It almost certainly has something to do with having fewer staff to work on skins after the job cuts recently. Perhaps it’s a lesson learned by Amazon after the catastrophic failure that was the Fire Phone. A shift to a more familiar UI will surely make the product less confusing to regular consumers.
We don’t yet have a release date, price or specs for the 10-inch tablet, but there have been rumors of a $50 6-inch model which is expected to hit the market in time for the holiday season. Both tablets will likely be announced and released at the same time to take advantage of the busy Q4 shipping period.
In news which will surely be no surprise to anyone, Amazon is no longer selling the unloved Fire Phone. Head on over to the Amazon Fire Phone’s product page and you’ll notice the phone is “currently unavailable” in both the 32GB and 64GB storage flavors. Despite many attempts to get people to notice its first smartphone, it seems Amazon didn’t do enough to make it appealing. Amazon confirmed to GeekWire that “the company sold out of its inventory of Fire Phones in the U.S. and globally at the end of August.”
The WSJ is reporting that Amazon is going to strip down a 6-inch tablet and sell it for $50 for the holidays. What’s amazing is that the theoretically color tablet was cheaper to make than even an ebook display version:
Mr. Bezos had set an internal goal of the $50 price tag for versions of both the Fire tablet and Kindle e-reader, viewing the rock-bottom prices as a crucial lure for a more cost-conscious group of buyers, the people said. But the e-reader screen technology from its vendors ultimately proved too expensive to drop the retail price, the people said. Amazon’s cheapest Kindle sells for $79.
It is likely that the $50 Tablet will be a pared down version of the already minimalist $99 6-inch Kindle which has gone on sale for as little at $69 in recent months. The report cites a mono speaker as one of the cost cutting initiatives but the company will likely drop things like cameras, display quality and battery life.
What might be more interesting to me is that Amazon is said to have fired many from its FireOS group in the wake of the Fire Phone flop and subsequent $170M writedown…
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Amazon offers the Unlocked Motorola Nexus 6 32GB in Midnight Blue or Cloud White for $349.99 shipped. That’s $300 off the original list price, $150 less than Best Buy’s current listing, and the lowest we’ve ever seen. The move is likely a clearinghouse before new Nexus devices are revealed on or around September 29th. It is also in response to the newly on sale Moto X which has similar/better specs and a $399 price tag.
The Nexus 6 is still an incredibly solid phone and one of only a few options if you want to play with Andoid M Marshmallow right now.
Amazon shoppers gave it 4.2/5 stars. Last year’s NewGeekGuide review is here.
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Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service previously only allowed users of Amazon’s own Fire-branded Android devices to download content for offline viewing, but today the company announced it’s expanding that privilege to all iOS and Android users.
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A report in the WSJ suggests that Amazon is most likely abandoning plans to make any further smartphones after the failure of the Fire Phone.
In recent weeks Amazon has dismissed dozens of engineers who worked on its Fire phone at Lab126, its secretive hardware-development center in Silicon Valley, according to people familiar with the matter […]
The company told some smartphone engineers earlier this year that further phone development would be shelved, though one of the people said Amazon has shifted the effort to its hometown of Seattle …
From 9to5Toys.com:
Amazon has launched a new service for Android users that will deliver “over $10,000 in paid apps, games and in-app items” for free. Amazon Underground is replacing the popular Free App of the Day promotion. The promotion page teases Frozen Free Fall, Star Wars Rebels: Missions, and Goat Simulator amongst others that will be available as a part of this promotion.
Here is how you claim your free apps:
First, visit this page and enter your phone number or email address to have the Amazon Underground for Android app sent to your device. After you have received the app invitation, go to your phone settings, tap security or applications, check the Unknown Service Box and hit ‘OK’. Then open your downloads by going to My Files or Files and tap on the Amazon App file. Tap ‘install’ when prompted. Finally, tap ‘Open’ on the Amazon Undergound App and use the menu on the left to navigate to Apps & Games.
Amazon currently lists over 470 games that are apart of this promotion on the Underground page. You’ll find top apps from Disney, ZeptoLab, Zynga and more.
