Android Phone Fans |
- Google takes aim at Apple-backed, patent trolling Rockstar consortium in new lawsuit
- Samsung is here with an infographic of their own, highlights their evolution in mobile display tech
- HP Chromebook 11 returning to retailers, Amazon-only for now
- Alleged 3D model of HTC M8 (HTC One 2) pictured
- HTC gives us a behind the scenes look at the Android OS update process [INFOGRAPH]
- What’s the best Android phone of 2013? You decided! [Readers' Choice]
- AOKP and Paranoid Android ROMs updated with early KitKat builds
- Could these three trademarks suggest Samsung is bringing new devices to CES?
| Google takes aim at Apple-backed, patent trolling Rockstar consortium in new lawsuit Posted: 26 Dec 2013 07:11 PM PST
The patent wars continued today, this time with Google leading the offensive in a countersuit against Rockstar. For those unaware, Rockstar is a patent With more than 6,000 patents at their disposal, it was in late October that the inevitable happened: Rockstar officially threw the first stone, targeting Android OEMs like Samsung, HTC, and LG. According to Rockstar, many of these manufacturers’ devices infringed on several of their patents, some relating to common smartphone features like "mobile hotspot functionality," or "Messaging and Notification." Sounds like just about every smartphone on the planet is infringing, right? That’s exactly how Google feels. In the countersuit, Google had no problem calling out Rockstar on their BS, saying in their complaint:
If there was any question Rockstar has been specifically targeting Android devices — with so many patents, just about any smartphone could be found “infringing” — Google made sure to emphasize this in a section from their filing titled “Rockstar’s Campaign Against Android.” Ha. It’s clear Google’s suit against Rockstar is aimed at simply defending Android and their business partners, a strategy Google also hoped to employ with their bid of Nortel’s patents back in 2011. There’s no question the Rockstar consortium, at worst, poses a real threat to Android and even the Nexus program. Google asked the court to clear not only Android of any wrong doing, but specifically named their devices like the Nexus 5, 7, and 10. It’s entirely possible Android OEMs cave and work out licensing deals with Rockstar, but something tells me this is just the beginning of another long, drawn-out legal battle. #AndroidProblems. |
| Samsung is here with an infographic of their own, highlights their evolution in mobile display tech Posted: 26 Dec 2013 05:36 PM PST
After becoming a household name in providing some of the highest quality television displays on the market, I think it goes without saying that Samsung is very proud of their display unit. It wasn’t until fairly recently Samsung moved onto conquering the mobile display market, providing some of the best displays not just for their own devices, but even those found in Apple’s products. To highlight their achievements in this segment, Samsung took to their blog with an infograph of their own (we already saw one from HTC earlier this afternoon). Let’s have a look.
Have to admit, as someone who passed on this generation Galaxy device in favor of the HTC One/ Nexus 5, I certainly envy my friends’ Samsung Galaxy S4s. While TouchWiz has never quite been for me, one of the best software features Samsung included was the ability to choose the saturation output in the display settings. It’s this feature that squashes complaints that SAMOLED is overly saturated and has me drooling over next year’s inevitable Samsung Galaxy S5 release. |
| HP Chromebook 11 returning to retailers, Amazon-only for now Posted: 26 Dec 2013 03:41 PM PST
We’ve been following the HP Chromebook 11 since the device officially announced back in October. Since then, we watched as reports of faulty chargers prompted retailers to pull the laptop from their shelves, eventually leading to a full recall of all chargers sold with the Chromebook 11 a few weeks back. After all that drama, the Chromebook 11 is now officially making way its way back to retailers, the first of which being Amazon who is once again listing the laptop as “in stock” and for $280 on their site. Still nothing from Google Play or Best Buy, but we imagine it wont be too much longer before you can pick one up from them as well. |
| Alleged 3D model of HTC M8 (HTC One 2) pictured Posted: 26 Dec 2013 02:05 PM PST
No, HTC hasn’t begun selling bars of soap in the shape of their Android handsets, what you’re looking at before you is an alleged wax sculpture of the upcoming HTC M8, better known as the HTC One sequel (or HTC Two, or HTC One 2 — whatever you wanna call it). According to the poster of the original image (which has since been removed from the Chinese blogging site Sina Weibo), this wax sculpture was based on a 1:1 3D model of the M8, more than likely used by Chinese accessory manufacturers. How this person was able to secure images of, or make a wax model is anyone’s guess, so for now, we’ll take it with a grain of salt. The only thing we really know is that the release of HTC’s followup to their hottest Android to-date is imminent, given the February announcement of the previous flagship. In order to get the jump on the competition, we’d expect HTC to follow that same timing, only minus the manufacturing delays that plagued the HTC One’s launch initially. Rumored specs for the M8 are exactly what you’d expect of a flagship in 2014, although you’ll notice the absence of an HTC One Max-like fingerprint scanner. One thing that is easy to make out is a dual-LED flash on the back, similar to the white/amber combo used on the iPhone 5s to help better adjust to the surrounding light. Interesting… [via NWE] |
| HTC gives us a behind the scenes look at the Android OS update process [INFOGRAPH] Posted: 26 Dec 2013 12:27 PM PST
HTC is going fully transparent in their latest infograph explaining the entire process that goes into updating their devices to the latest version of Android. Devices are broken down into 3 main categories: carrier devices, unlocked/developer editions, and Google Play editions. In the infograph, it’s easy to follow all the individual stages of development, starting from when Google first provides the source code to the eventual OTA update that gets pushed out to customers’ devices. Besides being fun to look at, we found it extremely interesting to see all the behind the scenes work that goes into updating the Android OS on these devices. They even created a new landing page for interested parties to visit and see the current status of Android 4.4 KitKat on their favorite HTC devices. HTC must be delegating a lot of manpower to getting these updates out and for them to be one of the first OEMs out the gate with Android 4.4 KitKat on the HTC One, well, it’s definitely commendable. Full info graphic below.
[HTC] |
| What’s the best Android phone of 2013? You decided! [Readers' Choice] Posted: 26 Dec 2013 12:12 PM PST
After a few long, hard days of voting at the polls, you guys weighed in on the top Android phones of 2013 and let your voice be heard. We tallied up the votes — over 8,400 of them — and it’s time to reveal what you all considered to be the best Android phones of 2013. We’ll first take a look at and talk about the top five phones, and then we’ll reveal the full breakdown once we’re doing yappin’. Let’s get to it! 5 – LG G2This was a personal favorite of our own Edgar Cervantes. The LG G2 was LG’s first phone following the Korean company’s new device strategy. They opted to streamline their portfolio and focus on just a few devices, and the G2 ended up being the one to lead the way. The device featured a 5.2-inch 1080p HD display, a Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, a 13 megapixel camera and more. 4 – Motorola Moto XMotorola was another company that decided they had enough of their failing device strategy, and sought to do something about it with a major change. That’s what brought us the Moto X, a phone that breaks all the rules in all the right ways. Motorola broke those rules by offering truly customizable phones, giving buyers tons of color combinations to make a phone that’s uniquely theirs. Of course, those options didn’t come to everyone immediately (AT&T had a timed exclusive and everyone had to wait quite some time on the wooden back plates), but it was better late than never.
They broke more rules by declaring that the specs war was irrelevant. That declaration was made by the Motorola X8 computing system, which was a custom dual-core SoC by Qualcomm outfitted with two other separate cores — one that enables the low-power always-listening voice commands, and one that “listened” for gestures for things like activating the camera and automatically enabling and disabling Active Notifications. Let’s not forget the company’s breakneck speed in getting Android 4.4 KitKat rolled out, a pace that not even most of the Nexus devices out there can say they were able to match (although they weren’t very far behind). Simply put, we like the new Google-backed Motorola, and so did a great deal of you based on the reception the Moto X got in this poll. 3 – HTC OneHTC came into 2013 on a mission — to stop drowning the market with tons of smartphone releases. Like Motorola and LG, they wanted to streamline their portfolio and focus on just a few key devices to maximize marketing and development efforts. The result of that is the HTC One, a beautiful 4.7-inch device that still has folks in smartphone bliss today.
The device’s aluminum chassis, crisp 1080p display, and solid internals have kept it going this far. It had a Snapdragon 600 processor and 2GB of RAM, which is enough to do just about anything in this day and age. And while the HTC One got some flak for lack of removable battery and no expandable storage, that particular configuration has become a bit of an industry trend, so no harm no foul. 2 – Samsung Galaxy Note 3Part of me wants to believe that the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is favored because of the ridiculousness of it. A massive 5.7-inch 1080p display, a Snapdragon 800 processor, 3GB of RAM, USB 3.0 and more. We weren’t terribly surprised as the latest Note phones are always a bit ahead of their time, but Samsung pulled out all of the stops that literally no one else did.
In terms of everything else (software and overaal features), the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 didn’t really deliver anything that we haven’t already seen out of the Samsung Galaxy S4, but the South Korean company tightened everything up to bring us one solid, yet familiar experience. 1 – Nexus 5While some may argue that the Nexus 5 has an unfair advantage, the facts can’t be ignored — it’s damned hard to find a better package than this for its cost. For as little as $350, you’re getting a 5-inch 1080p HD display with a Snapdragon 800 processor and 2GB of RAM. You’re getting KitKat in its purest form, with a couple of exclusive bits (such as the new Google Experience Launcher) added in. You’re getting updates right from the horse’s mouth.
The Nexus 5′s journey was interesting, with its fair share of problems well-documented among worrywarts everywhere. Not the least of those problems was the device’s camera, which suffered from slow shutter speeds, slow startup times and poor low-light performance. A great deal of those issues were later eradicated with a software upgrade. The Nexus 5 has also been knocked for its weak speaker, questionable battery life and more. The sum of all those things might scare most folks off, but there’s little doubt Google will look to improve the experience with more upgrades over time. Regardless, the fact that the Nexus 5 was able to snap up the #1 spot with that kind of uncertainty speaks volumes about the value of the Nexus brand around the Android community. Way to go, LG and Google. The RestWant to see how everything else fared? Here’s the full breakdown of votes, sorted from most to least:
The Nexus 5 took up a whopping 25% of the votes, which is pretty impressive considering we collected over 8,000 of them. The race was a bit tighter the further down the list we go, with the Note 3, HTC One, and Moto X all coming in with just over 100 votes ahead of the next guy. Looking at some of the unsung heroes, you can see that the Samsung Galaxy S4 still took a respectable sixth place, beating out the likes of the DROID MAXX by more than 6%. Beyond that, votes were spread thin between the rest of the pack. It’s worth noting that quite a few of the votes in that “other” category were for the Moto G, which lends credence to the fact that the price/performance ratio that phone provides is just as satisfactory as Motorola advertised. 2014 and beyondAnd that’s a wrap for 2013, folks. We’re riding high into 2014, with the first order of business being what should be a phone-filled, fun-filled CES in Las Vegas. We’ll be hitting that rodeo up to bring you all the latest that these companies and more will have to offer for what should be yet another great year in tech. In the meantime, let’s hear your thoughts about the way these results turned out in the comments below! |
| AOKP and Paranoid Android ROMs updated with early KitKat builds Posted: 26 Dec 2013 11:02 AM PST
Over the Christmas holiday, while you were sipping on eggnog and spending some time off with the family, popular custom ROMs AOKP and Paranoid Android saw the release of their first KitKat builds. Paranoid Android was first out the gate, announcing the beta release of their ROM, packing only a bare bones KitKat experience. Don’t worry, PA promises the usual goodies (Hybrid Engine, HALO, PIE) will be making their way to the ROM eventually, so check up with them for future updates. AOKP was very much the same, releasing nightlies of Android 4.4.2, again, without the usual customizations and enhancements that make their ROM so popular. Really, this is only for those that love fiddling around their devices and want the absolute latest version of Android possible, no matter the cost. For the adventurous flashers, download links provided below.
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| Could these three trademarks suggest Samsung is bringing new devices to CES? Posted: 26 Dec 2013 04:00 AM PST
It’s been recently discovered that Samsung has trademarked three new names in relation to, well, all things personal electronics. Filed on December 17th, the three trademark filings don’t give us any solid information as to what they could be, but it’s fun to imagine what we might be seeing at some point in the near or distant future. Here are the three names if you’re curious:
Believe me when I say you’re not alone in thinking that these sound nothing like names Samsung would use for devices. They could be code names for all we know, but it’s a bit odd for a company to trademark three throwaway names. Could these be new tablets? Phones? AIO desktop computers? A competitor to Google Glass? Some cool accessory? The world may never know, but we’re hoping the Korean company is coming to CES with more than just their dreams and ambitions. We know it can’t be the next flagship phone, aka the Samsung Galaxy S5 — that particular device is headed straight for Mobile World Congress. Samsung’s also rumored to be coming to town with a couple of Android tablets, including a new Samsung Galaxy Note Pro that might have a massive 12.2 inch display. Of course, any guess is a stab in the dark at this point, so we’ll just have to stay tuned to see if any of these names mean anything at all. [via USPTO] |
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