Corbin Davenport
Contributing since August, 2015
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3615articles
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About Corbin Davenport
Corbin is a tech journalist and developer who worked at Android Police from 2016 until 2021. Check out his other work at corbin.io.
Latest Articles
Android Wear 2.0 was officially released in February, but many watches are still waiting on an official update. The ZenWatch 2 and 3 were confirmed to get the new version (the original ZenWatch was left out), but last we heard, it would come sometime in Q2 2017. Now the rollout seems to be in full swing, at least for the ZenWatch 3.
Back in 2015, Amazon released its cheapest tablet yet - the 'Fire tablet' for just $50 (with lock-screen ads). There's still a sizable developer community around the device too, with plenty of hacks and ROMs available for owners.Now the company is following up with a new model, named the Fire 7. The Fire HD 8 is also getting a minor refresh, in case you need something a little bigger. The 7-inch tablet still starts at $50 with lock-screen ads, and $64.99 without. The Fire HD 8 starts at $79.99 with lock-screen ads, and $94.99 without.So you might be wondering what is different with the new models. Honestly, there doesn't appear to be any major hardware or software differences. The colors are different - both tablets are available in Black, Canary Yellow, Marine Blue, and Punch Red. The smaller Fire 7 also has dual-band Wi-Fi for the first time, so you can connect to 5GHz networks.Here are the full specifications for the Fire 7/Fire 7 Kids Edition:
After months of rumors, the HTC 11 was officially revealed earlier today. We'll have to wait until the reviews start to pour in to find out if the phone is worth buying, but in the meantime, you can enjoy all of the phone's included wallpapers.
Capcom's long-running Ace Attorney series has been popular on the Nintendo DS and 3DS, and we're slowly starting to see some of the titles arrive on Android. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney was released for Android and iOS last year, almost nine years after the original DS release. Apollo Justice's sequel, Dual Destinies, will soon be available on Android as well.
Google officially released Android Things OS last year as a developer preview. If you're not familiar with it, the OS is a lightweight version of Android that maintains support for popular Android developer tools and APIs, like Android Studio and Google Play Services. The developer preview has received a few updates since then, with the last one adding support for the Google Assistant SDK.
One of my main problems with 'smart' assistants is that they aren't great at delivering information. Yes, you can ask "will there be storms," but having your Echo or Google Home proactively inform you about dangerous weather would be far more useful.
The LG Stylo 2 Plus is a pretty standard budget phone, with a Snapdragon 430 processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 2,900mAh battery. The phone's standout feature is a large 5.7" display, with the low resolution of 720x1280 (again, because it's a budget phone). It shipped with Android 6.0, but now the T-Mobile model is getting a bump to 7.0 Nougat.
My Google Home isn't the best at figuring out if me (or someone else) actually says "Hey Google" or "OK Google." Sometimes I'll be watching a video where no one says anything remotely similar to those phrases, and the lights on my Home flip on. But I have noticed that most of the time, the lights turn off a split-second later, as the Home actually realizes that no one called for it (presumably once the voice clip is processed by Google's servers).
After months and months of rumors and speculation, YouTube finally unveiled its live TV service back in February. For $35/month, you had 44 channels (plus Fox Soccer Plus and Showtime as extra packages) with support for six user accounts and DVR storage for up to a year.
Pretty much everything about the Moto C lineup has been leaked already. In fact, the last leak was yesterday, where the C and C Plus were shown alongside Motorola's other (unannounced) 2017 phones. But now both phones are official, and will be available "in various countries across Latin America, Europe, and Asia Pacific."
Samsung announced a pair of Chromebooks back at CES 2017, the Chromebook Plus and Chromebook Pro. The former is powered by a custom ARM-based OP1 processor, while the latter is equipped with an Intel Core M3 6Y30 chip. The Plus was released back in February, but the Pro was delayed - presumably to fix issues with the Android app compatibility.
We already covered the flagship feature of Allo - the ability to create a personalized sticker pack from selfies. But Allo 11 has a few other minor features worth mentioning, like improvements to group chats and future support for sending messages with Google Now or Assistant. Let's take a look.
T-Mobile first started a 'BOGO' (Buy One, Get One) promotion for the Galaxy S8 a few days ago, which allowed customers to buy two Galaxy S8s and get a rebate for the value of the second phone up to $750. The company quickly launched the same promotion for the LG G6, but that seems to already be over.
Earlier today, Netflix started showing up as 'incompatible' on the Play Store for rooted and unlocked Android devices. However, the app itself continued to work fine, leading some (including myself) to think it could have been an accident. However, Netflix has now confirmed to us that blocking modified devices from downloading the app was intentional.
USB Type-C cables can get pretty expensive, but if you don't need the fast transfer speeds of USB 3.0/3.1, Amazon's own AmazonBasics cables are a good option. In fact, they're an even better option right now, because they're on sale. Now you can get the 9ft Type C cable for $7.99 (20%) and the 6ft for $6.79 (15% off).As mentioned above, these cables are limited to USB 2.0 for data speeds, but they do provide a power supply of 5V/3A - making them perfect for quickly charging Nexus and Pixel phones. And before you ask, these are Benson-approved.It's worth mentioning that only the white cables seem to be discounted, and not the black ones. You can find them at the link below.Source: Amazon
You don't see many high-profile apps blocking root users these days, with perhaps the most recent offender being Pokemon GO. Now it looks like Netflix might be next. According to several reports on Reddit and other sites), the Netflix app is showing up as incompatible with some rooted devices.
The original Polaroid went bankrupt in 2001, with its brand and assets sold off. Then a 'new' Polaroid formed, but that one declared bankruptcy too in 2008, later selling itself to a holding corporation. These days, the Polaroid brand has been licensed for just about everything - from 4K TVs to security cameras to Android phones.
Last year's Samsung Galaxy J3 was a decent little budget phone. It had a 5" 720x1280 Super AMOLED display, an Exynos 3475 processor, and 1.5GB of RAM. Now the J3's successor, named the Galaxy J3 2017 (nice branding), has appeared for sale at AT&T with seemingly no formal announcement or fanfare.
When Samsung first started developing its own operating system, named Tizen, many thought the company would be positioning it as an Android competitor at some point. That hasn't really happened, with only a handful of phones in emerging markets (plus some TVs and watches) actually running it. Samsung today revealed the 'Samsung Z4,' and it's a pretty good representation of the platform as a whole.
HTC's first 2017 flagship was the HTC U Ultra, which put simply, was not a good phone. However, the company is planning another high-end device, which is expected to be called the 'HTC U 11.' We already knew that the phone would have pressure-sensitive bezels to detect squeezing, but now we know a little more about how it will work.