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OnePlus introduces a weirdly Lord-of-the-Rings-themed pair of earbuds for some reason
Launching in China, but may be headed westward
OnePlus is continually seeking new ways to deliver unique and stylish designs with its products, sometimes experimenting with textures and materials you won’t find in other manufacturer lineups. Just as a major software update is rolling out to the OnePlus Buds Pro, the company is also releasing a new design of their true wireless earbuds inspired by the illustrious Mithril armor from the Lord of the Rings series.
Here's what to expect when you inevitably drop your shiny new Galaxy S21
The bigger they are, the harder they fall
Last year, a significant number of Galaxy S20 series device owners weren't happy to find the glass covering their rear cameras destroyed without much provocation. This year, the S21 phones come with a metal-reinforced housing and smaller, individual covers featuring Corning's new Gorilla Glass Victor. So, does the new get-up actually stand up to drop tests?
Pixel 5 rises from the dead after withstanding torturous teardown video trials
1000° heat is mere child's play for the Pixel 5
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Google may have gone wild with bio-resin on the Pixel 5, but does that make it any less sturdy? JerryRigEverything's newest teardown videos put Google's latest flagship up against formidable foes like a cup of acetone and a powerful heat gun — and although the phone does die by the end of the first video, it makes a surprising comeback in the second.
For you Google Home owners that have been waiting so patiently to change up the look of your fancy new speaker, this is for you. Google has made six new, shiny bases available on its store. Half of them are fabric and the other half are metal. These are designed to make your Home fit in better with your home... décor.
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LG has said repeatedly that the LG G5 has a metal alloy body with cleverly hidden antennas. The company didn't really go into detail about how that was achieved, except to say the process is called micro-dizing. It seems that micro-dizing may have something to do with plastic because a teardown video from YouTuber JerryRigEverything reveals what appears to be a plastic coating on top of the metal frame.
The early reaction to the Nexus 6P from both critics and owners has been mostly positive, but a few new owners seem to be encountering serious problems. Specifically, the glass panel on the rear of the phone, which covers the camera, LED flash, and laser autofocus module, is reportedly cracking and breaking on its own. A user on the Android subreddit reported the rear panel cracking, and at least two others have corroborated with similar stories, with the panel splitting into multiple cracks with no particular rough handling or impact.
If you've heard about the Turing phone, you're probably either extremely interested or extremely indifferent. (Is it possible to be indifferent to an extreme degree? Anyway.) The somewhat bombastic company has been showing off a device with a unique design and lofty claims of being "unhackable." It's more than vaporware, though - working prototypes have been shown at trade events, and now Turing is taking phone reservations via its website.
The Galaxy S6 has wireless charging. The HTC One M9 does not. There's a pretty good reason for this: metal interferes with the current methods for wireless charging, so you can't have your fancy metal phone and charge it (wirelessly) too. Engineers at Qualcomm have a solution to that, at least according to the company's latest press release. It's a newly-announced functionality of the existing Rezence wireless power standard, which is different from Qi and PMA.
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The midrange smartphone market is getting more interesting by the day, both on its cheaper lower end or in the more expensive price bracket. The latter is the case of the newly unveiled Oppo R7 and R7 Plus, which tread that thin line between upper midrange and almost-flagship status, offering a list of impressive specifications in a very decent-looking package.
With the Galaxy Tab A, Samsung is giving its budget tablet line-up a touch of class. This is no dinky Tab 4. This 4:3 slate has a metal chassis! And now it's coming to the US. On May 1st, Americans will be able to buy the device from the likes of Amazon, Best Buy, and HH Gregg.
If you're a fan of the direction Samsung has taken with the design of the Galaxy Alpha and Galaxy Note 4, you'll be happy to see the same notes show up in even more hardware. The new Galaxy A7 is a bigger brother to the previously-announced Galaxy A5 and A3, complete with its thin, minimal design and metal bezel and frame. The phone's 5.5-inch screen is the biggest in the series, and it's also in the same ballpark (at least in terms of size) as flagships from both Samsung and its competitors.
While Sony's initial Android Wear offering, the SmartWatch 3, is perfectly fine from a technical point of view, one of the words we heard from commenters over and over again was "ugly." Even Ryan Whitwam could only call it "acceptable" in his review. Sony's hoping to fix the lackluster looks of the SmartWatch 3 with a new version clad in a stainless steel body and watch strap. And boy, it's amazing what a little metal can do.
Last week Amazon briefly showed off a few new options for the Moto 360, including the metal bands that the company has been teasing ever since the original announcement. Those disappeared from Amazon almost instantly, but now Motorola seems ready to sell at least some of them. After a quick announcement on the company blog, some of the new options are being sold now.
Samsung spent a lot of time at its latest earnings call trying to re-assure investors that its meteoric rise to the top of the Android hardware business wasn't going to end anytime soon. The Wall Street Journal quotes Senior Vice President Kim Hyun-Joon, who mentioned two incoming models in particular: one with a large screen, and one that would be made using "new materials." The former is almost certainly the next iteration of the Galaxy Note, which has been released in the latter half of the year since 2011. The latter sounds like something new.
Hold on to your butts, everyone. I'm about to drop some news that will blow your minds. Samsung has a new phone in the works, and there's one thing that will supposedly make this thing different from all of the others. SamMobile has leaked images of the upcoming Galaxy Alpha, a Galaxy S5 variant that will apparently be constructed at least in part out of aluminum.
Welcome to the latest entry in our Bonus Round series, wherein we tell you all about the new Android games of the day that we couldn't get to during our regular news rounds. Consider this a quick update for the dedicated gamers who can't wait for our bi-weekly roundups, and don't want to wade through a whole day's worth of news just to get their pixelated fix. Today we've got a radioactive platformer, an incredibly creepy adventure game, a puzzle game that takes physics seriously, an endless runner with no running, and a platformer that's more metal than the HTC One. Without further ado:
Lenovo, despite being the relatively new owners of Motorola Mobility, didn't need this acquisition to produce attractive new hardware - at least for markets other than the US. The Vibe Z, which never made it to our corner of the world, looks poised to get a sequel that ups its game in every area that matters. Shots of a phone dubbed the Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro have surfaced, showing a 6-inch phone with a quad HD display, a 4000mAh battery, a 16MP OIS camera with dual LED flash, and a Snapdragon 801 processor. The Vibe Z's plastic body has been replaced by an impressive metal one.
Rumors have been circling of an upgraded version of Samsung's Galaxy S5 flagship for a few months now, including the idea that it will feature the metal body that's been desired by at least some Samsung fans for quite a while. A pair of leaks for the supposed device have surfaced this weekend, one on video and one in a set of photos. And they can't both be right.
Anyone who knows me (or has read any article where I mention music) is probably aware of my music preference: I'm all about rock and metal. Thus, when Rock Radio from AudioAddict hit the Play Store, I knew I had to check it out. And I wasn't disappointed.
Begin with a Sonic the Hedgehog base. Add some splatter cinema, mix in a bit of parkour, garnish with an electric guitar and serve free. That's the recipe for Running Fred, a runner game starring a ginger down on his luck named Fred who's being chased by Death. Death's pretty cool about the whole killing Fred thing, though. He provides you a nice tutorial and even gives Fred the chance to escape. If he can survive the gauntlet of brutal traps, that is.