latest
Chinese manufacturer Oppo has been teasing its N1 flagship for some time, and the phone finally became official this morning. At 5.9 inches it sits squarely in the "phablet" category, though there are certainly enough other hardware highlights to turn a few heads. The most interesting is probably the 13MP camera, which sits on a case-mounted hinge and rotates to serve as both the rear and front cameras. It's a design seen before in some laptops and earlier camera phones, but this is the first time we've seen it on a modern smartphone.
Here's How Cyanogen Inc Wants The CyanogenMod-Enabled N1 And The First Hardware Partnership With Oppo To Work
Here's How Cyanogen Inc Wants The CyanogenMod-Enabled N1 And The First Hardware Partnership With Oppo To Work
Oppo and Cyanogen Inc are going to announce a partnership next week - this much is clear from the video posted earlier today by the official Oppo channel and featuring the man himself, Steve "Cyanogen" Kondik. It will be the first deal of its kind between the newly announced company and a hardware manufacturer, and after speaking with multiple people familiar with the matter, I now have a pretty good idea of how the CM team wants it to work. Not everything is set in stone yet - in fact, a lot is still up in the air, so Steve is en route to China to actually finalize the negotiations and work out the details.
Steve Kondik and company announced earlier this week that the CyanogenMod ROM has been incorporated into Cyanogen Inc, with the aim of strengthening the pseudo-platform and reaching more users. Since the first announcement Cyanogen has been teasing one major hardware partner, and it looks like that has been revealed.
There was a time not long ago that Chinese OEMs were unlikely to make a splash outside of the Asian market. However, Oppo attracted some international attention with the Find 5, and the internet has been increasingly anxious to see the company's next effort, the N1. You need not wait until next month to get a glimpse of the N1 – some legit-looking images have popped up on Weibo and via @evleaks.
As disappointing as it may be to see the Nexus One - Google's first officially anointed developer phone - still getting Froyo-based updates, that's exactly what just happened. According to several Android Central forums members, a 558kb update to Android 2.2.2 (or build number FRG83G) is currently rolling out over the air to the N1, bringing "important bug fixes" with it.
It doesn't seem like it, but just a year and a few days ago, Google made available the first handset to bear the Nexus name - and what a long way we've come since. When the Nexus One was released, there were cries of "iPhone killer" and of Google entering the handset arena in direct competition with Apple. While the latter assertion remains debatable - the first does not. The Nexus One was a near-total commercial failure next to the iPhone 3GS, and even the original Motorola DROID ate the Nexus One for breakfast in terms of sales.
The Nexus One may be growing long in the tooth, but it's still surely one of the most active phones when it comes to development. Hence this hack should come as a surprise to no-one: T-Mobile's WiFi-Calling functionality has been extracted from one Vanilla Froyo running device (the G2) and injected into another, the one and only Google Phone. While this will obviously only work on N1s on the T-Mobile network, it comes as a welcome distraction to those of us waiting for the imminent Gingerbread OTA.
While the Nexus One has officially been discontinued stateside on Google’s website, it seems Google’s first (and probably only) phone will be headed to the cluttered desks of more Android developers as Android’s newest official developer phone.
Tmonews has leaked a T-Mobile retail partner sales FAQ in which it is explicitly states that T-Mobile will never again stock the Nexus One in their retail stores.
HTC confirmed in a press release today that the Nexus One (which is still manufactured for and sold across Europe and Korea) and Desire will no longer be sporting AMOLED displays. Instead, HTC has opted to use Sony SLCDs. Their reasoning? The press release gives it to us from a nice, sugar-coated PR perspective:
CyanogenMod users rejoice: Cyanogen and the CM team are continuing to work feverishly to get CyanogenMod 6 into official release territory.
As we warned was imminent, the Nexus One is no longer available directly from Google, as supplies have been exhausted. Google.com/phone has been replaced with a simple message directing customers to a help center article outlining carriers that supply the device. Carriers will continue to sell the device until their own stocks are depleted.