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Apple announced a lot of cool new stuff at its Peek Performance event today: a new iPhone SE, a new iPad Air, a new monitor, and a new desktop Mac. But despite all the impressive hardware, I was more focused on a detail that's objectively minor in comparison: there's a new green iPhone colorway, and sitting here with a not-really-green Galaxy S22 Ultra, I'm very jealous of it.
Score a OnePlus 8 for just $420, today only
Woot is offering a blazing $280 discount on last year's model
The latest OnePlus phones are pretty good, but their ever-climbing price tags have a lot of brand devotees seeking alternatives. Amazon's closeout site Woot offers one today, and today only: last year's not-quite-flagship, the OnePlus 8. This new, unlocked version of the phone comes in fetching Glacial Green and only in the 8GB RAM, 128GB model, but it's only $419.99. That's a steal for a well-made 5G phone based on the Snapdragon 865 platform.
Electronic waste is an increasingly salient issue. As more and more of our stuff comes with processors and batteries, and as we're pressured to upgrade it sooner and sooner, we're racking up a whole lot of difficult-to-recycle crap. Fledgling companies like Fairphone and Teracube, aware of this problem and the potential business opportunity to be seized in solving it, offer devices that are positioned as less environmentally taxing. The latter's newest phone, the Teracube 2e, costs just $199 and will last you all of four years — at least that's what the company says. After using the phone for a few weeks, though, I can't help but be skeptical.
Google's Launch Night In is just around the corner, at which the company is expected to formally reveal new Pixel phones, the new Chromecast with Google TV, and a new Nest-branded smart speaker. But leaks continue in the now week-long leadup to the event, and today Roland Quandt has revealed what looks like an official promo image, showing off the new Nest speaker and Chromecast remote. But, most importantly, we also get to see what the green Pixel 5 looks like.
We've learned a lot about the upcoming OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro over the past few days, thanks to leak after leak. While the general design and specifications of the smaller OnePlus 8 were already known, now we know what colors will be available — and it seems like OnePlus is trying something new.
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- Samsung has confirmed the battery color change is real.
In case you somehow haven't heard, the just-officially recalled Galaxy Note7 has been having some battery troubles - troubles that are leading to people and things getting burned. To differentiate the explosion-prone and revised Note7s, the Korean company is changing the color of the battery indicator in the status bar from white to green.
Andru, PowerbyGen's hit device charger based on our favorite robot, is unquestionably the most adorable adapter you'll ever see. Since his debut last year, Andru has been joined by white and dark versions and international accessories.
You don't really need my commentary for this one. Just kick back for 2 minutes, watch, and see if this humorous take on Google Glass by stuntbear cracks a smile on your face. These will never get old.
Everyone hates junk mail, right? I'm not talking about spam emails you get in your inbox on a daily basis, which you may not even notice if you're using Gmail. I'm talking about those pesky paper ads that arrive over snail mail almost every single day, burying the lone letters you do actually care about in an ocean of, well, crap.
Remember back when an HP Touchpad was spotted running Android out of the box? Well, it would appear that after some cajoling, the CM team (in association with an attorney) have convinced HP to release the Touchpad's Android kernel source, along with a couple of other GPL components specifically modified for Android-powered Touchpads accidentally released to the wild. In addition to the kernel, HP released code to androidvncserver and i2c-tools. The only thing missing, according to Green (part of the CM team), is the Wi-Fi driver. Green explains this in an announcement on the RootzWiki forums:
The Green movement seems to be on the rise with smartphones lately (remember the Motorola Citrus?) - Sprint announced today that it has teamed up with Samsung to do their part in helping out too. The first eco-friendly Android phone to hit its network will be the Samsung Replenish, made of 34.6% recycled plastic, sporting an energy efficient charger, and packaging made from 80% recycled material marked with soy ink.