During the Motorola livestream today, Moto was quick to point out that the digital photography focused site DxOMark was very pleased with the new 21MP camera in the Style and Play. DxOMark has since published their report regarding the new cameras, and it looks like they perform very well indeed.
Amidst all the hype of the OnePlus 2 and the rain of Moto 2015 news, Samsung tried stealing the limelight back to itself by announcing their next “Galaxy Unpacked” event, which will be held on August 13th 2015.
Samsung took to Twitter to reveal a very cryptic gif associated with the event, which probably has some clue on the device(s) to be launched. The hashtag “#TheNextGalaxy” does indeed point that the event will be the launchpad for a Galaxy device, one at the very least. And thanks to the leaks that have been doing the rounds the past couple of days, it wouldn’t be too bad of a guess to say that this is where we will get to see the new Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Plus, and maybe even the Samsung Galaxy Note 5.
#TheNextGalaxy is coming. See what's next on August 13. http://t.co/8YGETdtuo7 http://pic.twitter.com/CSaKrroj1h
— Samsung Mobile (@SamsungMobile) July 27, 2015
Traditionally, the Galaxy Unpacked events have been the place where Samsung shows off the rather significant products in its lineup. At the Samsung Unpacked event held in Barcelona, Spain in March 2015 , Samsung took the wraps off its 2015 flagship duo, the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge. The accompanying teaser image (pictured) for the March event clearly laid hints towards the “Edge”.
Teaser images apart, we do have a very decent idea of what the phones will look like. As far as the S6 Edge Plus is concerned, it would be a blown up version of the S6 Edge, with a bigger form factor. No points for guessing that this would put the Galaxy S6 Edge Plus in direct competition with the iPhone 6 Plus, making it a very compelling choice against the iPhone for the general, uninformed consumer.
And if you still had doubts regarding what the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 would look like, newest leaks courtesy of nowhereelse.fr reiterate what we have seen so far.
The images also offer a glimpse of the S Pen, and it does look like the S Pen would be ejectable as there appears to be no clear indentation to pull out the pen. The images also confirm that the Note 5 will not feature a USB Type C, opting for the more ubiquitous micro USB port. We can still expect quick charging capabilities out of the Note 5, so all is not lost on this end.
There is a chance that we may also get to see the next iteration of the Samsung Gear smartwatch. We will get more leaks and info regarding this as the event approaches.
To recap, the Samsung “Galaxy Unpacked” event will be held on August 13th 2015 at 11 am PDT. You can also catch the event live stream here.
What do you think the event teaser image signifies? Will we see some more surprises from Samsung at the event? What are your expectations of the event? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Read on for related coverage:
Many handset leaks can be frustratingly indistinct, but the pictures linked here give us a clear look at Samsung’s upcoming Note 5. It features a metal and glass-clad design similar to the S6/Edge as expected, with a flush stylus design and curves on the rear to aid ergonomics, but no obvious SD Card slot.
Microsoft’s Android expansion has been well received on the productivity front, but not so much in terms of original applications. While their Office suite managed to bring some of the document-editing excellence to mobile, attempts at entering one’s interface through apps like Picturesque proved to be pointless failures. But even then, some apps like Hyperlapse redeem the computing giant through great quality.
Microsoft seems to be approaching Android with brute, misdirected development and plenty of unorganized output, and if they want their tactical incursion to work out, they need something to coordinate all their efforts. Their latest Arrow Launcher seems to be an attempt at that — while the company is trying to overtake common services with their app alternatives, Arrow provides a homescreen to tie it altogether. This, coupled with their Picturesque lockscreen, allows your phone to have as much Microsoft as possible… short of Windows, that is. So how good is this new launcher, exactly?
The private beta is currently invite-only, but you can find an APK download here, courtesy of Microsoft News. For a beta release, the application works very well, but before going deeper, I want to bring up previous UI expansion attempt: Picturesque offered a lockscreen replacement with an emphasis on photography and slight utility, but in the end, the prominent Bing advertisement and its inefficiency held it back from being appealing. Arrow follows some of Picturesque’s steps in terms of design, and that is one of the most apparent similarities you will notice when firing up Arrow:
The Launcher features a glass motif full of transparencies that is much more reminiscent of the iPhone interface that it is of Material Design. The look itself is good – in fact, it is very good – and Microsoft brings with it custom icons for system applications. Now as pretty as it might be, it doesn’t belong in Android: many of your Material icons will clash, and since you cannot have icon packs, there is not much you can do about it. The rounded squares of system applications are too flat to merge with your material icons, meaning you will not be able to shake off the inconsistency. Whenever you pull your notification drawer, you will once again see the issue, as the material panel looks out of place on top of the glass homescreen.
The lack of customization of Arrow is what ultimately hurts it the most: the UI consists of a row of Recent Applications and three rows of Frequent Applications, independently of DPI. You can only remove these, not add them. The dock allows you to add or remove applications, and you can also swipe from the bottom to access a drawer with apps you can choose (so, in a way, it is an expanded dock) and your recent contacts. The app drawer is vertical and ordered alphabetically, with a search function that filters applications. It is worth noting that you cannot introduce widgets into this launcher, which cancels out one of Android’s greatest strengths. This is all you will find on the main homescreen, and there is not much you can change.
There are other two homescreens, none of which you can remove. By long-pressing empty space, however, you can change their positions and enter virtually inconsequential settings. By default, you will find Contacts to the left and Notes & Reminders to the right. The Contacts screen rounds up the people you contact frequently and recently, like the main homescreen does with apps. From here you can call, message or send e-mails either through the shortcut or by the menu that comes up when selecting a contact. At the top you will find a button that brings up the dialer, and one that takes you to your contacts application. Long-pressing a contact brings up a contact details menu.
The Notes & Reminders homepage allows you to quickly add items for notes and turn them into reminders by assigning them a time and date. You can also star them for visibility and priority, and you can also find a list of completed tasks at the bottom. The interface to input time and date was neither in their glass theme nor in Material, but in Holo. The notification reminder message also looked out of place, and it is rather intrusive.
Performance is good, but not as good as a lightweight launcher. On a TouchWiz ROM, I did notice that it took extra milliseconds to fire up applications and to go back — just enough to make it noticeable. On CyanogenMod 12.1, this was not an issue and it performed just fine. Arrow is still in beta, so much of this will probably be corrected. Microsoft has even added a way to easily debug the application, and they have included a menu to send them suggestions directly.
As of now, this application doesn’t offer anything special. I do appreciate that Microsoft did not plaster Bing all over the UI like they did with Picturesque, and instead relegated that to optional wallpapers. But despite the application being simpler than Picturesque, it offers even less of an incentive to actually have it. Arrow is too rigid in a platform that is all about customization, and the inability to freely and accurately modify most of your homescreen is obnoxious. The app also doesn’t fare well with custom DPI, which gives you a lot of unused space as you cannot customize the icon size, count nor spacing. Then there’s the fact that the theme and iconography clashes with Material Design, which is not only present in UI aspects that overlap Arrow, but also in the icon designs you cannot modify.
The added functionality is also not very useful and can be entirely replicated through widgets, which the launcher forbids. The notes and reminders system is rather useless when widgets and Google Now can handle the task much better and with deeper integration. The contacts tab leaves a lot to be desired and it doesn’t really offer much in terms of functionality. Overall, one can easily get a much more personal and consistent experience through Nova or Action Launcher, but this does serve as a good pre-packaged solution to more casual users who are looking for something new. Power users will probably be better off with their own homescreens.
So to summarize: the interface looks good by itself, but clashes with the rest of the OS and applications. It allows for almost no customizability, and it feels very rigid and inconsistent. It is still in beta, and with the ability to directly make suggestions, one can easily get their opinion to the developers and hope that they will listen. As of now, Arrow Launcher is bland, but not bad — it just has no real direction. If you are on XDA, you are probably a home button press away from finding a better solution.
What do you think of Arrow Launcher? Let us know below!
Today’s Moto event just ended and now we have a clear look at all of Motorola’s upcoming phones, including not one but two refreshed versions of their Moto X line. So how do these phones stack up against the competition? Motorola promises no compromises for affordable prices in every bracket, and this is what they have to offer:
Motorola wanted to focus on 5 aspects: meaningful exchanges, making and sharing memories, Self Expression, being always there for you and to not empty your wallet. All of these has been addressed in the new Moto X Style, Moto X Play and Moto G, which feature impressive cameras, customization, performance and pure Android. Below you will find the specifications of each device.
The Moto X Style features an exquisite design and the “best camera [Motorola] has ever built”. It allegedly has some of the most advanced technology in both software and hardware to deliver faster focus and capture and better colors, and DxOMark places it just behind the Galaxy S6. The device also features a new Turbo Charging method that Motorola claimed to be faster than the S6’s Adaptive Fast Charging technology, and the device will come with many many design options in Moto Maker where you can theme the colors and pick a back of smooth wood, Horween leather, and more materials. The Pure Edition will be selling for $399 unlocked and will be available in September.
The Moto X Play features a killer camera, “incredibly long lasting battery” with a 3630mAh package and Motorola claims you can get 8 hours of usage in just 15 minutes of charging. It comes with a 5.5 inch full HD display, Moto Assist and every other software feature that last in years’ Moto X, and many of the ones Moto X Style come with as well. Above you can find the full specifications which include a Snapdragon 615 processor and 2GB of RAM. The Moto X Play will be available in August for “half the price” of flagship phones from competitors.
The new Moto G promises to be the ultimate Moto G killer with camera technology comparable to that of the Nexus 6, an improved lens system and ultimately great picture quality from edge to edge. The phone also comes with IPX7 certifications for water resistance, meaning it can take a quite splash and carry on just fine. The phone will also be customizable through Moto Maker unlike previous models, while still retaining the swappable backs and flip covers that many loved so much. The Moto G will be available today!
What do you think of these new devices? let us know!
Everyone is always talking about their bars. How many bars of WiFi do they have? How many bars of 4G? What does a bar really represent? Does it give you any indication of the “strength” of the signal? Does it give you the throughput? If you had this information, you could know more about your data connections.
In this episode of XDA Xposed Tuesday, XDA TV Producer TK reviews an Xposed Module that gives you the ability to put certain measures of your data connections on your phone. XDA Senior Member Beat_Slayer offers the NetStrength module. So, TK shows off the module and gives his thoughts. Check it out!
Be sure to check out other great XDA TV Videos:
The OnePlus 2 has just had its Virtual Reality Launch event, and at the XDA Office we all watched it live to see the new Flagship Killer attempt to make us never settle for anything else. The event itself was streamed through the OnePlus 2 Launch application, and now that it is over, we know plenty about the specifications and everything the new device is offering.
The device features a premium design with metal edges and buttons and a sandstone black back with the same design that was leaked this morning. The front features three capacitive keys with a fingerprint sensor in the middle one as well. Luckily, the keys are void of labels other than simple dashes, and you can customize the functions on each one to get the experience you want. Moreover, the device features an “alert slider” on the side to quickly mute your device without accessing any software menus. Finally, the front is clean with no logos of any kind, making for a sleek slab of black glass.
The internal specifications are what we have been expecting: inside the OnePlus 2 rests a Snapdragon 810 processor. Qualcomm’s VP of Marketing showed up in a virtual video-conference during the launch event to reassure us once more just how powerful and cool the processor is. We are taking it with a grain of salt, of course. Other than that, the 4GB of DDR4 RAM also made the cut as promised, and it will also come with 16GB (with 3GB of RAM) or 64GB of storage. OnePlus claims that this package powers up one of the fastest experience available on the market, something which we cannot wait to test for ourselves.
The main camera of the OnePlus 2 is a 13MP shooter with a 1.3μ sensor that OnePlus claims will allow for more light and thus better pictures. The camera also comes with Optical Image Stabilization and Laser Autofocus, and all of this is claimed to be put to great use through a simple and powerful Camera app. The OnePlus fans in the launch event had good commentary to say, and the team took a selfie with the crew with the 5MP front-facing shooter.
The phone’s display is a 5.5 inch LCD In-Cell display with 1080p resolution powered up by a 3,300mAh battery. The phone also comes with style switch removable back covers that are easy to remove and snap on, and in terms of charging, the hyped-up USB Type C cable made its appearance with another reversible partner on the other end: the USB plug that goes into your charger and computer is a USB plug that is reversible as well.
OxygenOS is still mostly like Stock Android, but it comes with revamped features and functionality, allowing you to switch to a dark theme on the fly for night time occasions. You can also control app permissions, and theme various aspects of the UI such as accents and icons through icon pack support.
Finally, OnePlus took us back to its trendy offices to close the event by rounding up the specifications and announcing availability: the device will be available on August 11 in the US, Canada, EU, India and China, and it’ll come to South-East Asia in Q4 2015. OnePlus will also open stores in their most popular cities across the globe where users can try out the device and get goodie-filled invites as well. Locations include San Francisco, New York, London, and Berlin among others.
As for the price, OnePlus began teasing a competitive tag by comparing it to the competition, but the lights went off before we could hear the actual number. Just another way for them to keep teasing us, we suppose. They have just released the price on twitter, though, and it will be selling for $329 for the 16GB model and $389 for the 64GB version.
The Virtual Reality launch was definitely a great idea and we very much enjoyed the innovative approach. Hopefully, more events are handled this way. it was a fun tour through the OnePlus offices and we cannot wait to get our hands on a OnePlus 2 to try it out for ourselves. For now, you can check out MKBHD’s impressions video below:
What do you think of the OnePlus 2? Let us know in the comments!
