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Welcome back to another week of the Android Police Podcast. To catch us live on Hangouts On Air every Thursday at 5:30PM PST (subject to change as per the calendar widget below), just head over to androidpolice.com/podcast. For the unedited video show, click here (warning: this video is uncut). As always, we'll take your questions at 530-HELLO-AP and also at our email address: podcast at androidpolice dot com.
The Mi 5 is not the only phone Xiaomi has to replace the Mi 4. The Chinese smartphone maker is also releasing a revamped version called the Mi 4S.
Despite not much of a western presence, Xiaomi is rapidly becoming one of the largest phone manufacturers in the world. At Mobile World Congress, the company has unveiled its new flagship product: the Xiaomi Mi 5.
Android One is Google's initiative to get stock Android into the hands of more users, particularly (though not exclusively) the ones in developing markets. This usually means that devices which are part of the program are very inexpensive — with prices reaching as low as under $100 — and with specs that about match up to those price points. However, Android One devices have something that even most $500+ phones don't: fast and reliable OS updates straight from Google. (The Wall Street Journal reported back in November that this may eventually change, but we've yet so see any evidence of that, and the WSJ doesn't have a perfect track record either.)
Google has been fiddling around with Project Tango for a few years, but there have yet to be any consumer devices. That's expected to change this summer when Lenovo releases a Tango phone, which it previously announced at CES. Now, Google and Lenovo have set up shop in a Barcelona museum to show what Tango can do for you.
Read the title. Now read it again. Yes, itshappening.gif and you better be ready for it. The CheetahPhone is officially a thing.
OPPO might have just blown everyone's mind with its Super VOOC fast charging technology, but that doesn't mean that the company's MWC announcements are over. SmartSensor is its new Optical Image Stabilization technology and it happens to be the smallest, fastest, and most precise sensor available on smartphones right now.
For mobile payments to really take off, the functionality needs to be available to far more than merely the latest devices. For this reason, the SD Association, a non-profit that sets memory card standards, is pushing a means to use microSD cards to make otherwise incompatible devices compatible.
SanDisk built its name producing flash drives, and now the company is releasing its first dedicated USB Type C option.This USB 3.1 stick comes in storage sizes up to 128GB and offers read speeds of 150MB/s. Write speeds are unspecified.The SanDisk Ultra USB Type C drive is already up on Amazon in increments of 16GB (12.99), 32GB ($17.99), 64GB ($27.99), and 128GB ($49.99). Though as I write this, it shows up as temporarily out of stock in all four sizes.This is not the first flash drive to support USB Type C. Lexar has a dedicated drive that costs less money. Other companies such as Kingston, as well as SanDisk itself, have introduced convertible options that can connect to both Type C and Type A devices. But getting a dedicated drive is cheaper if you don't need the backwards compatibility.
Today at MWC, Sony announced four new connected gadgets which it hopes will let people look up from their phone screens more and engage the world around them. The products include a bluetooth earpiece, a wearable camera, a vertical projector, and a friendly robot, which are respectively called the Xperia Ear, Xperia Eye, Xperia Projector, and Xperia Agent.
Three of those products are actually just concepts: only the Xperia Ear has an expected launch date, and it won't come out until later this summer. The remaining products — the Eye, Projector, and Agent — are nowhere to be seen here at MWC and it will likely take some time for them to get to market, if they do at all. For now, all we have about them is a wishful concept video, the kind you might find on an Indiegogo flex-funding campaign.[EMBED_YT]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0B_lGEqTy4[/EMBED_YT]The demo video shows the Xperia Ear sending and reading out text messages via voice commands, with presumably several other actions in the works too. The Xperia Eye is a sort of clip-on camera that would enable the wearer to take photos without even having to press any button. It also feels slightly creepy.
The Xperia Projector might potentially be one of the more useful gadgets, and would let users project and interact with images on a flat surface such as a wall or table. Finally, the Xperia Agent is a tiny robot which greets its owners as they walk through the door. It may or may not end up working something like Amazon's Echo, but we'll have to wait for Sony to reveal more concrete plans.
Here at MWC in Barcelona this morning, Sony announced an all-new series of Xperia devices: the X series. Sorry, folks - no Z6 to be found here. But the X Performance may pique your interest regardless. We had a chance to play with the X and XA (the X Performance was not being shown, just dummy units), so let's talk specs and first thoughts.
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ZTE doesn't want to talk about the Blade V7 phone they have on the slate for Mobile World Congress, at least not yet. A promotional website has a small image and a broken link, but if you put in the URL manually, you can see the newly-announced device in all its golden mid-range glory. The V7 kind of looks like the bastard child of an iPhone and one of HTC's later One devices (sorry, ZTE, but that circle home button and custom icon theme are pretty telling), but it's none the worse for being born out of wedlock. It's hard to go wrong with an all-aluminum body, right?
Earlier this evening in Barcelona, we had our first chance to look at the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge in the flesh. Unfortunately, it wasn't under ideal conditions, and I don't feel comfortable putting down a large number of thoughts about the devices just yet. We need some more time with them. But, we did manage to record a video demonstrating the phones, as well as snap a gallery of photos for your perusal, should you be so interested. We'll have a full hands-on of the S7 and S7 edge later this week, but for now, here's our first look at Samsung's new flagship duo.
Two months ago (after no small amount of leaking) HTC announced the One X9, a variant phone with elements of its One line, exclusively for the vast Chinese market. Today in Barcelona the company has announced that it will expand the availability of said phone, bringing it to "North Asia" and the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) zone later this month. Specific countries and prices haven't been released, but in China it launched for 2399 yuan, about $370 USD.
HTC is taking a different approach to this year's mid-range Desire phones. They're decidedly less modest.