Despite having built the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge with impressive water and dust resistant qualities, it seems Samsung and/or AT&T has seen fit to launch an ‘Active’ version. Evidence supporting the device has crept up in a number of locations online over the past few days.
Following some serious issues with performance, Sony Canada has advised its Xperia Z5 and Z5 Premium customers that it is temporarily pulling the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update.
When LG launched the G5 at its event in Barcelona last month, it took us a little by surprise that the company was following the trend of Chinese OEMs and ditching the Android app drawer. With the device’s official retail launch just a few days away, it seems the manufacturer has changed its mind.
Each year, Apple releases an iPhone and Samsung releases its Galaxy S-series flagship. Most will argue that they normally represent the best phones available, and this year, it’s no different. But which of this year’s phones is the best overall?
Following on from Verizon, Sprint has started pushing out the Android Marshmallow update to its Samsung Galaxy Note 5 users. Customers on the nation’s fourth largest carrier with Sammmy’s flagship phablet should see the update become available over the next couple of days.
HTC seems to be having a lot of fun teasing its next flagship smartphone. The HTC 10 will be unveiled officially at a virtual event on April 12, and is expected to compete directly with this year’s biggest smartphones. While the company has been pushing out its own teasers, leaks and renders have given us a pretty clear image of what to expect from the Taiwanese tech company this year.
Todoist, one of the best productivity apps released for any platform, has been updated to bring more smarts to its Android app. Unlike the last major update, this version doesn’t include a massive visual overhaul. Instead, the team focussed on bringing more intuitive and productive methods of adding, searching and filtering your projects.
Update: Speaking to TechWeekEurope, Barclays has indicated it has no plans to support Android Pay in the UK. Instead, it would rather continue with its own apps for contactless payment.
“At this stage we are not planning on participating in Android Pay in the UK,” a spokesperson said. “In January this year we introduced a contactless mobile payment feature to the Barclaycard Android app that allows customers with an Android phone to make contactless payments for £30 and under, and at some retailers for up to £100.”
Recently it was rumored that Android Pay would finally land in the UK, and other international destinations, in March. With this month quickly running out of days, Google has officially announced that its mobile payments service will be launching at some point in the next few months. No specific date has been revealed, but, several banks are already onboard.
The Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge has been on the market for roughly a week, and in that first few days, we’ve been testing a number of third party cases to see which we think are the best. Thanks to the phone’s IP67 rating, we know the phone is already pretty well equipped to handle the elements, but a little extra protection from drops and scuffs is always a good thing.
It may be two years old, but that doesn’t mean Samsung is going to completely neglect the Galaxy S5. As it turns out, the Korean tech giant has just started pushing the Android Marshmallow update to S5 (SM-G900L) users in Korea.
A report from The Bell in Korea suggests Samsung may be planning to launch its next S-Pen equipped phablet as early as July this year, less than 12 months after it launched the Galaxy Note 5. According to the site’s sources-in-the-know, Samsung will launch the device in mid-July, almost keeping with a tradition started last year of bringing the smartphone launch forwards and stepping away from a 12-month cycle.
HTC is going to announce a brand new phone at some point in the next couple of months, and will likely release the next generation flagship HTC One-series phone. While the device is likely to keep the trademark unibody metal chassis, it’s rumored to be moving away from the ‘One’ moniker, and will be named the ‘HTC 10’.
Update: T-Mobile has just announced that customers will be able to order the LG G5 from its online store from March 29th. Anyone who orders before April 5th will be able to claim a free LG 360 CAM, and those who buy before April 17th can get a the free battery bundle mentioned below.
Following the recent announcement that the LG G5 would be available from major US retailers in early April, Best Buy has launched pre-orders through its online store for the all-metal modular flagship.
Both AT&T and Sprint versions are available in gold, silver and titanium, but if you want pink, you’ll need to go with Sprint. And while Verizon models aren’t available to pre-order yet, Best Buy will be accepting orders for those on Thursday, March 24th.
Update: Samsung got in touch to say they’d read the article, and to assure me that steps are in place to improve its returns/exchange process for customers.
In respect of the other points raised we do empathise with your frustrations and can assure you that actions are underway and, in some cases, in place (the Samsung Shop is now able to offer exchange products for failures within the returns period) to ensure that we improve our service and support moving forward
It’s hard to imagine there was once a day when Android flagship phones performed noticeably worse than an iPhone. A few years ago, if there’s one thing Android OEMs were known for, it was pushing the most specced-out plastic phones possible. Most of the time, the specifications didn’t translate to a much better experience.
Despite more impressive-sounding specs, the Android flagships were noticeably slower than iPhones, their cameras were terrible and the fit and finish, or build quality was — quite frankly — woeful. It wasn’t true for every phone, but it was a prevailing theme.
A lot has changed over the past 4-5 years. Android phones have caught up with, and arguably, surpassed the iPhone. They have the best cameras, they’re fast, have useful tech like fast/wireless charging, big batteries, SD Card slots, waterproofing, crazy high def OLED displays and are somehow more affordable. What’s more, Apple’s cloud services which underpin its hardware leaves a lot to be desired, especially in staples like photo management, maps and messaging.
But there’s still one major area that Android manufacturers need to get their act together on: Customer Service.
In 2015, Samsung changed its approach to smartphones. Instead of just packing in the most powerful components in to a hideous plastic shell, the company actually gave a damn about design for once. It delivered the stunning glass and metal S6 and S6 Edge, but compromised maybe a little too much on some aspects. Most notably, the battery and lack of external storage.
This year, the manufacturer took what was great about last year’s phones and improved upon the compromises. What that means is that this year, the S7 Edge is easily one of the best phones on the market.
Oppo has taken the wraps off its latest premium mid-rangers, the R9 and R9 Plus, just days after they showed up on TENAA. Both are Android 5.1-based phones running Oppo’s Color OS 3.0, a new, lighter and brighter version of the Chinese manufacturer’s custom user interface. Both also have front and back cameras packed with pixels, relatively capacious batteries, edge-to-edge displays, fingerprint sensors and fast charging.
Months before the Galaxy S7 was officially announced, rumors surrounding the device predicted that some regions would get a model equipped with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon processor while other markets received an Exynos-powered version. Those rumors came to pass, and early benchmarks suggested that GPU performance was far better on the Snapdragon models than it was on the Exynos-equipped phones. In contradictory fashion, a couple of new comparison videos suggest those benchmark results were more than a little misleading.
Huawei’s next flagship smartphone will be the P9, and if rumors and leaks are anything to go by, we’re expecting a phone which looks very similar to the P8 released last year. With that said, there will undoubtedly be some differences shown off when the device gets unveiled to the media at a London event on April 6th. Now, the family of P9-series phones has shown up on Oppomart, an online store which specializes in importing Chinese smartphones to the US.
While Google surprised us all by releasing the Android N developer preview last week, it hasn’t seen fit to announce a name for the software yet. Of course, that could simply be because it hasn’t thought up a name. After all, it didn’t see fit to finally confirm that Android 6.0’s ‘Tasty Treat’ name would be Marshmallow until late August last year, a couple of months after the dev preview dropped at Google I/O 2015.
An as-yet-unpublished report from IHS has revealed that Samsung pays around $255 in component and build costs per Galaxy S7 unit. As noted by Re/code, that’s pretty much the same as it cost Sammy to build the Galaxy S5 a couple of years ago, clearly indicating that high-end materials are dropping in price.
OnePlus has decided to wade in to the world of software, and today announced a brand new app aimed at making photo organization and editing much easier for its smartphone customers. The “no-nonsense” app is equipped with only the tools OnePlus thinks are most necessary, or most likely to be used by OnePlus owners.
Just a few days after B&HPhoto kicked off an awesome promo on both the Nexus 6P and 5X, Amazon is offering its own discount on the latest and greatest stock Android flagship smartphone. Although color options are limited, you can now get a healthy $75 discount on both the 32GB and 64GB versions of the Huawei-made Nexus 6P.
Alcatel is a brand with a growing reputation for delivering affordable smartphones without the huge flaws normally expected with cheap devices. With the Go Play, the aim was to make a cheap device with a durable, water and dust-resistant design, and it costs just $200…
If you’re looking for a great value flagship smartphone, and have a particular taste for completely vanilla Android, you’re in luck. Both of the current Nexus phones, the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X have been discounted today…
