review

As an “Apple guy” the HTC 10 has been the one smartphone that I’ve immediately identified with in the Android ecosystem. That’s not to say that there haven’t been other Android devices that I’ve enjoyed or wanted to use, but I’ve always connected with HTC.

That probably has something to do with the fact that the HTC Wizard was the first “smart” phone I’ve ever owned. That phone ran the now defunct Windows Mobile and featured a resistive touch screen. Needless to say, I’ve long been a fan of the Taiwanese company, and its passion and desire to put out well-designed products continues to resonate with me in 2016.

So it’s with great empathy and concern that HTC has been struggling as of late. To be honest, the HTC 10 feels like the company’s make or break — the major fork in the road, if you will.

It’s very possible that the HTC 10 will be the release that paves a path to one of two destinations. Fortunately, I can report that this is a phone that’s good enough to pave that path in the right direction. It’s a phone that lives up to its billing, and in many ways exceeds expectations. It’s definitely not perfect, but it’s the best-looking and most complete HTC offering that we’ve seen thus far.
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Google is apparently kicking off the April Fools’ Day jokes super, super early this year. As has been noticed by several Android developers (via Android Police), the company seems to putting a new section called “Reviews from Space” in the developer console. The review, as you can see above, comes from one “Alex Scott”, sports 5 rocket ships, and was written on April 1st, 2029. Oh, and the device and physical conditions of the user are hilarious, too…

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The LG G5 is a weird phone, but that’s not a bad thing. If you only look at the spec sheet, there’s not much about LG’s latest G series handset that sets it apart from the other Snapdragon 820-powered competition. On paper, it might as well just be another option available for those perusing the shelves at their local carrier store. It has USB Type-C, a fingerprint sensor on the back, a nice camera set up, and a decent build. All of these things are expected of a 2016 flagship.

But the weirdness of the LG G5 is what makes it intriguing to me. Samsung ditched its plastic in favor of a premium metal and glass build with last year’s handset, and this year LG is following in step with an obvious evolution in the design of the phone. The all-metal beast now just has a single lock button around the back, the volume rockers have been moved to the sides, there’s a dual-camera set up, and most of all, this phone is modular…

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Compared to the dozens of other Android Wear watches we’ve seen over the last couple of years, the Moto 360 Sport is both different and the same. It’s different because, unlike the more popular classy offerings in the form of the Huawei Watch, the Fossil Q, the Moto 360 (2nd gen.), and others, the Moto 360 was made from the ground up with an active lifestyle in mind. It’s the same, however, in pretty much every other way imaginable…
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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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I’ve been using my Honor 5X on and off for about a week now, and my thoughts on the phone pretty much align with what everyone else is saying: The phone’s significance is not that it’s an amazingly great phone, but that it’s yet another inch toward driving down the price of good phones in general.

In the future, a “budget” phone (you know, the $150 Moto Gs of the world) will offer everything that today’s flagships tout. They will be made of metal, they will have fingerprint sensors, they will have more than capable processors, they will have great cameras, and they will have good software.

To me, the Honor 5X is our first peek at such a future. But it’s definitely not without its flaws…

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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.”

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Meet the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium. Sony’s smartphone lineup is known for a couple of things that make it popular: incredible cameras and waterproof durability. And it’s safe to say that both of those boxes are checked here. But this time around, Sony added a new category: stupidly high resolution. The Z5 Premium packs the first 4K display on a smartphone, but is it all worth the hype?

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I used a Nexus 5X throughout most of October (and was very frustrated with it), but earlier this week the LG V10 showed up at my doorstep — and I just had to give it a shot for a couple weeks. Although my opinion may be skewed thanks to my less than joyful experience with the 5X, I actually found the LG V10 to be a contender for best handset I’ve used this year. It’s huge and heavy, yes, but at least for me, it’s more than feature-complete enough. And it’s especially great when you ditch LG’s software…
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I’ve been feeling up the Nexus 5X for about a week now, and I’m undoubtedly impressed. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a Nexus phone in this size range, and — as someone who used the Nexus 6 as his daily driver for a year — it’s really refreshing to once again have a handset to match my hands. That was the first thing I noticed about the Nexus 5X. I have little-to-no tolerance for third-party bloatware, skins, and gimmicks, and stock vanilla Android is almost a non-negotiable for me. And in this one area, the 5X — the 6P, as well — delivers, and that alone puts it in a league of its own in my eyes. That alone makes this phone, for me, one the cream of the Android crop.

But there’s one thing that has been a recurring theme in my first week with the 5X: performance. It’s just simply not good enough, and in 2015, OS stutters, frame rate drops, and lag while switching apps is quite simply inexcusable, (but especially in any phone that costs more than $100). It’s not that the 5X is a crippled experience — no, I’m sometimes in buttery smooth Android heaven. But in those times that my phone just slows to a crawl in the middle of my day, whatever the reason may be, I can’t help but want to throw the 5X at a wall…

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A while back, we took a look at Samsung’s new Gear S2 smartwatch, which is probably the best oneswe’ve seen released in 2015. Well, Samsung actually made two versions of this watch. Meet the Gear S2 Classic and damn, does this thing look good…
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This is the OnePlus X and in some ways, it’s the best budget smartphone you can buy, but allow me to elaborate. This is basically a OnePlus One packed inside of a smaller and more premium body, for less money. With that, you’re getting mostly the same specifications and performance, which makes it a big win in my book. But before we get into everything you need to know, let’s get the truly negative things I have to say out of the way…

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Meet the Blackberry Priv. And in case you’re curious, that stands for “Privilege of Privacy” thanks to its super strength data encryption. What makes this phone unique though comes from a couple of places. First off, it’s a BlackBerry phone running Android 5.1.1 Lollipop and second, that physical keyboard. But before you instantly dismiss this new smartphone, let’s take a look under the hood…

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This year Google decided to change things up a bit and release not one, but two new Nexus devices, with different builds, and different price points to satisfy a wider range of people. So there’s the LG-made Nexus 5X that starts at $379, which I recently reviewed, and then we have the Huawei-made Nexus 6P that starts at $499. These two options aren’t very far apart in terms of pricing, but the difference between them is pretty significant in a few areas…

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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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It’s certainly not the only connected-security camera, but following Google’s acquisition of popular security cam maker Dropcam last year, the company has just launched a second-generation product with new features. The new product was re-envisioned by Google’s Nest team— the people building smart home accessories like the Nest thermostat and fire alarm— and in the process dropped the Dropcam branding and gained a few notable enhancements.

But is the new Nest Cam worth an upgrade from your current Dropcam setup? And how does the product compare to the other connected home security-cam and all-in-one security devices on the market? We’ve been testing out Nest Cam since its release a few weeks back to find out.
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Google’s Nexus 5X may not the best budget smartphone you can buy, but it’s the only one that will appeal to purists out there. Google’s LG-made Nexus 5X is definitely worthy of some attention, but these days it’s a tough market out there for a flagship with a midrange price. The question is, can its $379 price tag win your heart and the cash in your wallet?

The Nexus 5X is the first budget Nexus we’ve seen in quite a while, the smallest as well, and as the name suggests, it’s the sequel to the Nexus 5. With that, you’ll find a very familiar plastic build with updated internals and a few extra surprises…

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Android tablets are something of an unusual product. No one’s quite convinced that Google’s operating system has been adequately optimized for big displays, but slowly and surely, it’s improving. One thing you can say about them is that they’re normally good value for money. Never has that been truer than with the ASUS ZenPad S 8.0. It’s a small, portable tablet that only costs $200 and has a 2K resolution screen. For the money, there isn’t too much to complain about…

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Today we’re taking a closer look at Samsung’s Gear S2. This new smartwatch was announced just last month during IFA 2015 and has been the talk of the town lately. We took a first look at it not too long ago and compared it with one of the other top smartwatches on the market, but it’s finally available to purchase. Either way, the Gear S2 is shaping up to be one of the top dogs in smartwatches thanks to some of its unique features — which surprisingly have nothing to do with Android Wear. Yep… this little guy is running Tizen and for the first time, I absolutely love it…

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