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Amazon is no stranger to offering solid deals on brand-spankin-new handsets (and with Wirefly out of the way, it essentially has little-to-no competition these days), and it's now offering a great deal for potential Sprint customers who are considering the HTC One M8.
It's hard to believe that it's been a decade since Google first introduced Gmail beta to the world – a task that, at the time, the team behind the product had no clue would fundamentally change how we use email. According to an excellent piece on Time, however, Gmail is really a product that almost wasn't. There were times when the company questioned whether or not to release the product to consumers at all.
While many budget smartphones have come a long way in proving that "affordable" no longer necessarily means "bad" over the past few years (Moto G, anyone?), the budget tablet is still oftentimes a gamble. On one hand, devices like the Nexus 7 provide a fantastic user experience for not a lot of moneydollars; on the other, there are devices like the Snakebyte Vyper that basically verify the saying "you get what you pay for." Of course, some manufacturers – like ASUS, for example – seem to have a better handle on the art of building usable, affordable tablets. Acer has also made somewhat of a name for itself in the budget tablet game, but they haven't all been zingers – the Acer Iconia A100 and A110 both had very lackluster displays, for example. That in itself is really a lesson to hardware manufacturers: it's OK to cut corners in some select areas on a device that's intended to be budget, but the display simply isn't one of them. Never, ever skimp on the display.With that, we enter the modern-day – a time when most tablet builders should just know what's going to work and what isn't. Acer certainly has plenty of experience at this point, but the real question is has it figured out how to build a usable, recommendable device for less than $200? After using the A1-830 (the exact model is A1-830-1633 for anyone who's curious) for a couple of weeks, I think I'd answer that with a certain "yes."
On a scale of one to ten, how much do you like movies and TV shows? I'd like to think that most people thoroughly enjoy a good flick, and basically everyone probably has at least one series they follow, as well. Of course we all love Netflix and Hulu+ (well, maybe we don't love the latter), but you know what else is good? Free. Free movies and TV, to be exact.
Philips has been slowly adding various bulbs to its Hue lineup over the last several months, bringing even more smartphone-controlled lighting scenarios to users. The entire concept of Hue is freakin' awesome as it is – lights that can change to any color or, um, hue on the fly – so any addition to the family is really just the icing on the cake.
Almost a year ago, Microsoft released Office Mobile for Android phones to the Play Store. The caveat, of course, was that it required an Office 365 subscription in order to use the application, which was kind of a bummer.
In October of last year 2K Games released NBA 2K14 as an exclusive download for the Kindle Fire. Now here we are, some five months later, and the company has decided the time has finally come to drop the year's biggest NBA game into the Play Store. That's one hell of an exclusivity period.
Update 3/27/14: The guys at B & A Studio found a much more affordable way to manufacture the dock, so they cancelled the already-95%-funded project and opened a new one. As a result of the new manufacturing process, the company is now only seeking $13,000 (instead of the original $20,000), and the docks are down from $35 each to $19. That's a pretty massive savings – now you can essentially get two for the price of one original.
Three days ago, we turned four. To celebrate, we teamed up with NVIDIA to give away four devices: a SHEILD, EVGA Tegra Note 7, HP Slate 7 Extreme, and ASUS TF701 with dock. Due to the popularity of that giveaway (and since those guys are so cool), NVIDIA offered up another TN7, Slate 7 Extreme, and TF701 with dock , giving three more readers a chance to win.
[Update: Winners!] Help Us Celebrate The 4th APversary With A Giveaway From NVIDIA And Android Police
A giveaway to help celebrate our anniversary!
On March 23rd, 2010, Android Police was born, which makes today our 4th anniversary! While we'd like to have a birthday party with cake, balloons, streamers, punch, pie, and party games (have to keep it clean – this is a party for a four year old, after all), we decided instead to just team up with NVIDIA and give away some killer gadgets. So instead of giving gifts to AP for its birthday, we're actually giving gifts to our readers. Makes sense, really, because we wouldn't have lasted for four incredible years if not for you guys in the first place. So really, the thanks goes out to all of you.
Every once in a while, a product comes along that changes our perception of what a particular category of device can be. A device that breaks the mold and becomes something more. Something better. Something that revolutionizes work, play, or both. A thoughtful, well-designed product for the masses.
Have you ever been in a situation that warranted the need for instant access to your phone's camera? Then you fumbled around, unlocking things and swiping all over, only to miss the moment. Shame, really. If only there were a way to grab your phone and say "take a picture!" and make it happen.
During the Q&A section of Motorola's Moto 360 Hangout today, a few interesting questions surfaced. In typical industry fashion, however, Motorola wasn't quite ready to give any sort of definitive answers on many of them. Still, there were a few small gems in the mix, including a big one on everyone's mind: will it work with all Android devices, or just those manufactured by Motorola? The answer was very clear: it will work with all (assumingly current) Motorola devices, as well as all others running Android 4.3 and above. So there you go – it doesn't matter whose phone you're using, if it's running 4.3 or higher, Moto 360 will work with it. That's awesome.
Skype For Android Hits Version 4.7, Brings Major Under-The-Hood Redesign That Results In Substantial Battery Savings
Skype for Android is hitting 4.7.
Today, Skype is delivering on a promise that it made back in July of last year. That's a long while to wait for an update, but this one is pretty major. In short, the team has carefully crafted an update for Skype for Android that allows it to run in the background with virtually no impact on battery life. That's what they're claiming, anyway.
If you're interested in Samsung's new oversized Note PRO or Tab PRO 12.2 devices, it's more than likely because you want to get more done on that beautiful and massive 12.2-inch display. In order to make that happen, you'll need a little bit more than just the tablet, and Logitech has already released a keyboard for the job: the Logitech PRO keyboard/case.At $130 (plus the $750-850 for the tablet), however, you have to ask yourself at what point you stop wanting a tablet and start wanting a laptop or some sort of hybrid/convertible device.
The day is drawing near for our friends across the pond – Chromecast is all set to go on sale tomorrow, March 19th. In fact, it has already started showing up on the web at sites likes like PC World and Currys for £30.
Google this morning unveiled Android Wear, the project that will bring Android – and more importantly, Google Now – to smartwatches. Really, it's the project that will make smartwatches relevant. As part of the announcement, El Goog announced that it has already partnered with the likes of Motorola, LG, HTC, and Fossil for upcoming watches. Now, LG has made available information about its watch, which is dubbed the G Watch (as if it would be called anything else).
Since what seems like forever, SwiftKey has been able to use SMS, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, RSS Feeds, and Yahoo to "learn" your typing style and better predict your next words. All of these options work well, and now the SK team has added a couple more choices in the latest beta: Evernote and Google+.
Ever since Google rolled out public beta applications through the Play Store, some of the biggest names in the game have jumped on board to essentially crowdsource bug discovery in upcoming releases. Among those that are now offering users access to early versions of its software is Facebook, which released a beta version of its primary application earlier this year. The company has now done the same with its Messenger application.
While it's probably safe to assume the bulk of our readers are after the highest-end handset out when upgrade time comes, there's undoubtedly also those who need to stay on a budget. LG's Lucid was a handset that I feel like helped spark a new era for the budget market: affordable phones that don't completely suck. Verizon must've felt the same way, because the Lucid saw a sequel with last year's aptly-name Lucid 2.