It’s hard to believe that we’re only a couple of short weeks away from the end of the year. As it has over the past few years, YouTube has taken that opportunity to release a mashup of all the top events, memes, videos, and songs from the year.
Starting today, YouTube is rolling out (via Wired) a new native sharing and messaging feature in its Android and iOS apps. While the video network is already a popular destination, YouTube wants to keep people in the app by having conversations about popular videos start and remain there.
Months after first showing it off, Alcatel finally made its budget water and dust resistant GO Play smartphone available to buy unlocked in the US in March. We unboxed it when it first came out (video below), and have been using it off and on since then, and finally gathered our thoughts on the sub $200 durable device.
In summary, the IP67 certification is a welcome feature, and certainly gives peace of mind if you’re buying for your kids, but you can find better performing phones with less durability for the same price (or a little more).
If 2015 taught us anything, it’s that there’s a huge opportunity in the smartphone market for high-spec, affordable mid-range phones. Companies like OnePlus, Xiaomi and Huawei have all churned out some fantastic devices at competitive prices. Remarkably, one of the fastest growing Chinese companies is Oppo, and they sent us their newest smartphone, the F1 Plus.
Yesterday, we brought you hands-on coverage of Huawei’s latest flagship smartphone from the launch event in London. Lighting wasn’t fantastic, but our initial thoughts were general positive towards the Chinese manufacturer’s latest high-end, elegant, glass and metal device. Now, we have the retail packaging, and couldn’t resist shooting an unboxing.
Towards the end of last year, a company called AC Worldwide launched a promising Kickstarter project. Essentially, these were fully licensed, to scale Star Wars Bluetooth speakers in the shape of C-3Po and Stormtrooper heads. Not long after the speaker project launched, an investor came in and offered the company all the money they needed to get the speakers to market. Now they’re here, and I just had to try them out…
In a durability test which will send health and safety professionals in to overdrive, the ceramic-backed Xiaomi Mi 5 Pro is forced to endure scratching from a number of intense-looking hardware tools. In the video, the host, Alex Wang takes to the back surface of the latest Xiaomi flagship with a number of metallic objects. Some are more common day-to-day objects like keys, others would only come in to contact with your phone in a workshop.
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.
There are many parts of the world where cellular and Wi-Fi speeds are still too slow for basic bandwidth intensive tasks like watching video. While Google has efforts such as Project Loon, they have also created physical locations in the Philippines that have cached YouTube videos for faster viewing.
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…
We were present when Samsung unveiled its newest Galaxy S-series smartphones at the Unpacked event in Barcelona. Now, just a couple of weeks later, we have the phone in our hands and are ready to share our second first impressions.
Earlier this week, Acer announced the all-new Liquid Jade 2. The new Android Marshmallow-powered smartphone features fairly high-end specs for what looks to be a mid-ranger.
Here at MWC in Barcelona this year, HTC decided to quietly launch a couple of new budget friendly devices. One of them is the new, low end Desire 530. Design-wise, it’s very similar to most previous Desire phones, although with a new colorful, speckled rear shell.
More often than not, when a manufacturer decides to mess with software, adding its own ‘valuable’ take on what we should have on our phones, it ends up being a laggy mess of unused features. Whether its LG with its inefficient launcher, or Samsung with its TouchWiz, no Android OEM gets it right. With BlackBerry’s PRIV, although there are undoubtedly a couple of things I’d change, most of the custom software is very useful and is — dare I say it — better than stock Android…
Over the past few months, Sony has been testing various concept software, offering it up to Xperia owners as part of a limited public beta test. One XDA Developers member was able to port the home launcher and release it as a downloadable APK which works on any Android device with Lollipop or later, and doesn’t require rooting. Needless to say, we were eager to go hands-on…
Earlier this month, Jide.com released an early alpha version of its new Remix OS. In essence, it’s a multi-window desktop operating system built on Android. It’s an interesting concept, but what makes it truly intriguing is that you can run it off a regular, fast USB 3.0 flash drive on a Windows PC or Mac. I took it for a spin on Mac to see what the initial version is like to use…
It’s New Year’s Eve, so it’s time to crack open the champagne. Champagne version of the OnePlus X that is. They’re now available in limited quantities in Europe and Hong Kong, and will be coming to the US soon. This is our unboxing…
Of all the Chromebooks that were announced this year, it was the new Dell Chromebook 13 range that caught our eye. Unlike most Chromebooks, it’s not really low-end and cheap, but’s also not quite as extraordinarily priced as the Chromebook Pixel. It sits somewhere in between, right in no-man’s land. The cheapest model will set you back $429, while the most expensive is around $650 currently. In the UK, prices range from £484 to £856…
HTC hasn’t officially announced the One X9 yet and already it’s seen its fair share of press coverage. An official TENAA listing gave away the important information a few weeks ago, while a more recent leak showed the handset in more detail. Over on Chinese tech site, iMobile, there is what appears to be an insanely in-depth article, multiple pages long, going over everything from hardware to software, benchmarks and everything in between…
As 2015 comes to an end, YouTube has released their annual mashup of the year’s top events, Internet memes, and songs.
V-MODA makes some of the best earphones available. While sports stars and celebrities are normally seen wearing Beats, you’re more likely to find a pair of V-MODA cans wrapped around the necks of DJs. And if I’m going to trust someone’s judgement on an audio product, I’ll choose a music professional over a sports-person any day.
In the past, I’ve owned the Crossfade M100 and now, the award-winning earphones are back with an added feature: Wireless connectivity. I’ve been using the Crossfade Wireless for the past week or so, and they’re rather fantastic…
Google hosted its very first Android Dev Summit this week and put on a number of seminars and keynotes for developers to see and learn some of the newest and most useful ways to make use of its APIs, features and services. The Dev Summit kicked off at the Computer History Museum just a couple of days ago and now you can catch all 20 sessions hosted on YouTube.
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Big phones have been a mainstay in the smartphone market for a few years now. Even Apple got in on the game for the first time last year with the iPhone 6 Plus. This year, Motorola gigantified its Moto X range, and Apple is on to its second generation premium phablet. The Moto X Pure, or X Style, is Motorola’s premium super-phone. Here’s how it compares to Apple’s biggest and best phone yet…
