Nexus 6P

Huawei has been a big smartphone name for a long time, but it was just in the past couple of years that the company decided to make its debut in the United States. Things kicked off with the Huawei-made Nexus 6P which proved to be a decent success. Later we saw devices like the Honor 5X and Honor 8, which also saw their share of praise from customers and reviewers alike. However, according to a report from Android Police, things haven’t quite worked out as planned…

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We’ve been hearing about Google’s upcoming Pixel smartphones for quite some time, but until just recently, we hadn’t had a good look at what each device actually looked like. Over the past two days, Evan Blass has leaked out two new renders of the Pixel and the Pixel XL, giving us a better idea of what to expect. Both phones are going to look pretty much the same with nothing more than a half-inch of screen separating them.

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VR is slowly taking over the tech space as more and more companies make their attempts to steal your content-consuming eyeballs. As you may know, Google was among the first to debut a mobile VR experience with Google Cardboard, but it was pretty barebones to say the least.

At Google I/O 2016 we got a sneak peek at what Google has in store for virtual reality in the coming months with Google Daydream. And right around the corner from the full Android N release, Google has debuted a set of developer tools to allow anyone with a Nexus 6P to test out Daydream right now…

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The summer is here, and that means we’ve seen a lot of new Android smartphones announced in the first half of this year. Starting off the year was the Huawei Mate 8 and Honor 5X at CES in January, of course followed later by Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 edge as well as the LG G5 in February at Mobile World Congress. But which ones are the best buys? Keep reading to find out…

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The rumor mill has all but confirmed that HTC is making the next two Nexus phones (which, as we told you yesterday, will be more influenced by Google), but sketchy rumors suggesting Huawei is planning a reboot of its Nexus 6P have today become a lot less sketchy. Previously, all we saw was a benchmark of a 2016 Nexus 6P with 4GB of RAM and — purportedly — a Snapdragon 820, but now we have a statement from the Chinese company itself…

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We’re nearing the end of the first half of 2016, and that means a lot of new Android smartphones have been announced. Starting off the year was the Huawei Mate 8 and Honor 5X at CES in January, of course followed later by Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 edge as well as the LG G5 in February at Mobile World Congress. But which ones are the best buys? Keep reading to find out…

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We’re pretty big fans of the Huawei-made Nexus 6P, even arguing at one point earlier this year that it was the best Android device available. Now, if a trademark filing is any indication, Huawei appears to be planning some sort of successor to the device as the company this month has filed for a new trademark for a device named the “Huawei 7P” (via Phandroid).

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“Be together, not the same” is the mantra Google has been spreading for quite some time now. It’s a good reflection of its intent and purpose; with 1.5 billion active users and a myriad of OEM partners contributing to its growth, the OS couldn’t ask for more diversity. Among Android enthusiasts, however, a vastly shared belief is that the stock, unadulterated, ‘vanilla’ experience delivered by Google is generally superior to basically any of the offerings brought to the table by third parties. This mainly stems from a bad history that saw manufacturers continuously deliver sub-par experiences and often lag far behind in the update cycle, not to mention the numerous design inconsistencies which added up to Google’s own often messy and unclear aesthetics. When Material Design was introduced back in 2014, however, a few things started to change.

For one, notoriously ill-designed UIs such as those from LG and Samsung (as well as from HTC, Sony, and most others) started to follow Google’s now precise and definite guidelines more closely, giving Android an overall sense of basic consistency at least across major instances. Samsung’s TouchWiz, in particular, got often criticized over the years because of its excessive bloatware and poor design choices, but with the massive hardware overhaul brought by the Galaxy S6 last year, software too got a considerable Lollipop-based facelift which went a little under the radar. The Galaxy S7 brought the whole thing one step further, and even coming from a long series of stock Android devices, I have to admit that my experience with TouchWiz wasn’t just not bad, but left me thinking of it as an outright smart, good-looking and overall well designed ‘skin’…

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Yesterday morning, at a relatively low key event without much fanfare and following the almost ritual avalanche of leaked schematics and what have you, Apple officially announced the iPhone SE. With a chassis virtually identical to that of the iPhone 5s – and 5 before it, for that matter – the smaller-sized iPhone came back in all of its four-inch glory, and not without raising eyebrows.

According to the company’s claims, however, about thirty million people bought a 4-inch iPhone last year, amounting to almost 8% of all Apple phones sold. Considering the massive marketing push made to advertise the four bigger-screened iPhones introduced in the past couple of years, that certainly is no small feat, indicating that there indeed still is interest for smaller devices, a market the Cupertino giant would be naive to ignore.

Sure, the much more variegated Android landscape has offered a few notable options in years past, but those were either afterthoughts, less powerful ‘mini’ versions of established flagships, or devices explicitly designed to be sub-par when compared to their siblings. The iPhone SE may lack 3D Touch and newer-generation Touch ID, but the rest of the package is clearly inspired by the iPhone 6s’ spec-sheet, and nothing says that this smaller sibling isn’t here to stay.

And that begs the question of how this is going to impact the Android landscape. Are Android manufacturers going to follow suit the coming years, or instead pray for the SE to be a one hit wonder (or a complete dud) – and thus something less to worry about?

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In a surprise move, Google announced today (as we told you earlier this morning) that the Android N developer preview is available for download. The simplest route is through the yet-to-be launched Android Beta Program, but as usual Google has also posted the factory images.

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LlabTooFer, who’s slowly building himself something of a reputation for leaking reliable HTC-related information, is back with another nugget today. According to the leaker, the HTC ‘Perfume’ One M10 will feature a Sony IMX377 camera sensor on the back. This is the same 12MP 1.55um camera with laser autofocus and PDAF (Phase Detection Autofocus) found in the two new Nexus smartphones…

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One of Google’s latest slogans created to showcase the essence of Android in a nutshell spells: “Be together, not the same.” It is both a testament to the company’s general embracement of diversity and arguably one of the most precise ways to describe the OS as a whole. Fans, however, have long had trouble trying to identify the ‘ultimate’ Android device, despite the sea of devices whose supposed heterogeneity should guarantee a perfect match for everyone.

In an endless fight among the various OEMs to come out at the top of the critics’ — as well as the fans’ — rankings, one trend has notoriously stood out. People love Android devices because of the software (specifically its flexibility), and in spite of the countless efforts made by manufacturers to tweak and enhance the OS in order to make it better, the pure, unadulterated experience offered by Google has long been preferred by virtually every enthusiast.

Be it because of its simplicity and cleanliness, dedication to Google’s brand, or the sheer fact that updates are not hampered by carriers and other third parties, stock Android has always had the upper hand over UXs such as Samsung’s TouchWiz or HTC’s Sense — at least to those who even know what “TouchWiz” is. To this day, the problem with Google’s vanilla OS still resides almost solely in the hardware it runs on.

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Google has just posted the new factory images with February’s security patch for Nexus devices. The images are still based on Android 6.0.1, so don’t expect anything besides security fixes. There’s also a new factory image for the Pixel C…

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