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Last week we posted to say that the Samsung Galaxy S4 would be featured on BBC Watchdog regarding its lack of user-accessible internal storage. The show was broadcast last night, a clip of which you can watch in the video below.
Interestingly Google and Samsung have just announced a Nexus version of the S4. This will run stock Android, meaning it will not have TouchWiz and therefore more user-accessible internal storage.
Only one day of Google I/O has passed and already there is a plethora of updates to talk about. Here you can find a brief overview of all the news that has emerged so far and we’ll keep this article updated with any further news.
First things first, a new version of Android has not yet been announced. This doesn’t mean it isn’t coming though, with Google Engineer Dan Morrill confirming on his Google+ feed that the update is a ‘topic for another day’. Its version number, 4.3, also seems to have been confirmed by its premature listing on the Google Developer website, although the page has since been removed.
Rather than creating a whole new device, Google and Samsung will be releasing a Nexus version of the Samsung Galaxy S4, which will therefore run stock Android and will not include TouchWiz. The S4 will differ from previous Nexus devices not only in that it doesn’t have an official Nexus name, but also that it has a microSD card slot. Previous Nexus devices have not had expandable storage and have been confined to 16GB internal storage.
The fact that the Nexus edition of the S4 runs stock and not TouchWiz will also mean that more of the 16GB internal storage is user-accessible. Samsung has recently come under fire for the amount of storage that it’s system install takes up on the S4, with some versions of the handset having less than 9GB of the 16 accessible to users. Taking the Nexus 4 as an example, there is close to 13GB available to the user of an advertised 16GB. The Nexus edition of the S4 will also have an unlocked boot loader and will be sold directly through the Play Store. UK pricing and availability is yet to be confirmed, although it’s set to retail at $649 in the US.
Alongside its announcement of the Nokia Lumia 925 yesterday, Nokia has stated that its ‘Amber’ update will bring the 925′s Smart Camera feature to existing Lumia handsets. The Amber update will be rolled out to all Windows Phone 8 devices, but not Windows Phone 7.5 or 7.8 handsets.
The Amber update will also bring FM Radio functionality to all existing WP8 Lumias apart from the Lumia 620, which does not have the required chip. Lumias 820 and 920 will also have ‘double tap to wake’ added to their feature sets. Nokia has said that more features will be confirmed for the Amber update, which is due to begin rolling out in July, closer to its release.
Due to differences in processing power between various Lumia handsets, the Smart Camera features will vary between different devices. It has not yet been confirmed which functions individual handsets will receive.
Action Shot
On the Lumia 925, 920 and 820 Smart Camera takes a burst of ten shots with a 5MP resolution, whereas the 520, 620 and 720 will take seven shots with a 1MP resolution. The shots are then stored on your Lumia until you are ready to apply some visual effects to them, which include:
We saw some big announcements at BlackBerry Live yesterday; BBM is coming to Android iOS and there’s a new budget BlackBerry to be released, the Q5. As well as this, BlackBerry has announced BBM Channels – a Twitter-like service for BlackBerry Messenger.
The beta release of BlackBerry Channels can be downloaded from BlackBerry Beta Zone.
With BBM Channels, organisations or individual users can create a stream on content to share and interact with others in real-time. To promote the beta launch of BBM Channels, Lewis Hamilton joined Thorsten Heins on stage to announce the MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS channel.
The idea behind channels is that organisations can publish content and then discuss it directly with fans. For such organisations there are built-in tools to monitor engagement and assess followers. Channels can be managed directly from a BlackBerry handset or from the web.
For users, there is a new discovery tool for finding new channels, which can be shared using a BB Pin or QR code. There’s also the ability to subscribe to a channel – much like Twitter – so that you receive updates as soon as new content is published.
The new BBM Channels beta is available for smartphones running BlackBerry 10 (the Q10 and the Z10) and BlackBerry handsets running BlackBerry 5 OS through 7.1.
Be sure to let us know what you think if you give it a try!
Nokia yesterday announced the latest addition to its Lumia range, the Nokia Lumia 925, the first stock of which we are expecting to arrive in June.
The Lumia 925 is slimmer and lighter than the 920, plus its got an aluminium frame to add further slickness to its aesthetic improvements. We posted Nokia’s official adverts and demo videos yesterday should you wish to take a look.
In the video below, Windows Phone Central give us a quick hands on with the Lumia 925 and compare it to the Lumia 920. The difference in size is clear – the 925 is a lot slimmer – and we also get a look at the 925 with the wireless charging case attached to it.
BlackBerry has announced that it plans to make its popular messaging service, BBM, available across multiple platforms this summer. The news emerged from BlackBerry live 2013, which kicked off yesterday in Orlando, Florida.
BlackBerry Messenger has long been one of the exclusive selling points of BlackBerry handsets. However, while the service useful initially as a USP, its lack of availability on other platforms has left room for rival services such as WhatsApp to gain considerable market share in the mobile messaging market.
The first release of BBM for Android and iOS (subject to approval from the Play Store and the App Store respectively) will make the service’s core features available to users, including:
Later on in 2013 BlackBerry expects to add functionality for its newly announced BlackBerry Channels (a Twitter-like service for BBM), voice chat and video chat to its Android/iOS apps, which will be free to download.
BlackBerry is not the only company trying to unify its messaging service at the moment. Facebook recently stepped up its offering with improvements to Facebook Messenger (which now includes free voice calls in some regions), WhatsApp does not yet have voice calling, but is the most widespread cross-platfrom messaging app in many regions, Skype has long offered free voice calls and is being integrated with more of Microsoft’s services, plus Google is expected to announce a massive update to its messaging portfolio at Google I/O this week.
It’ll be interesting to see which of the above makes it to the top first – a truly unified cross-platform messaging app would only leave room for one or two of these to be prevalent in the long run.
One of the small touches that adds to the impressiveness of Google Now is the collection of graphics that accompanies it. These are displayed behind the search bar on the Google Now homescreen, adding a nice bit of colour to the interface.
The good news is that XDA member Svarion has now taken the Google Now Graphics and turned them into a wallpaper app, called GoogleNowWallpaper HD, which changes the colour scheme of the background based on time.
There are several locations for you to choose from for the background; the classic Google Now view of the mountains, London, Berlin, Honolulu, New York, Seattle, Austin, Tahoe, Great Plains and San Francisco.
The time at which the background changes (dawn, day, dusk and night) can be configured within the app’s settings, or if you prefer you can just stick to the one background.
Thankfully Google Now wallpaper is not a live wallpaper so there is no need to worry about battery drain. Check them out and let us know what you think.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 is due to be featured on BBC Watchdog on Wednesday 15th May. This was first mentioned on Gavin’s Gadgets and the video below has since been uploaded to YouTube.
The video teaser below implies that the show will focus on the handsets memory size.
In the clip the Watchdog host Anne Robinson asks:
“Samsung, it claims its brand new Galaxy phone has an extra large memory, but what did it forget to mention?”
Our guess is that they’ll focus on the lack of availability of the 32GB and 64GB variants and may also cover the amount of internal storage that is taken up by system files and preloaded apps.
The most readily available version of the S4, the 16GB model, only has up to 9.5GB internal storage available to the user from an advertised 16GB.
The BBC Watchdog show will be broadcast on BBC1 at 8PM (GMT) on Wednesday May 15th.
Hat tip UKTechGuy
Since drop tests first came about, we’ve seen many a smartphone put through its paces using increasingly inventive approaches. From the good old ‘will it blend?’ videos, to the Samsung Galaxy S4 being microwaved, there aren’t many methods of destruction that haven’t been explored when it comes to phones.
This latest video sees the HTC One picked off with a .50 caliber sniper rifle. This wouldn’t be quite such a spectacle had the video not been recorded in slow motion, displaying the impact at the perfect speed for the human eye to observe. The video is recorded by RatedRR, who certainly aren’t newcomers to blowing up gadgets and make a pretty good show of things.
Two hundred minutes to create the unibody aluminium frame of the HTC One, disintegrated in an instant.
Via UberGizmo
The NetGear PTV3000 Push2TV adaptor is a Miracast dongle that will work with any Miracast-enabled handset, which by now is quite a few different phones.
In the video below, Youtube user veryannoyingname shows the PTV3000 being used seamlessly with the Samsung Galaxy S4.
We are expecting stock of the PTV3000 to arrive at Clove within the next few weeks, having initially expected stock to arrive in April. We’ll provide an update as soon as it’s in stock.