Facebook has released a new update for their Android app, which brings one of the key features of the ill-fated Facebook Home app. Now, through an option in the settings menu, you can enable the Cover Feed feature on your Android device, without having to install Facebook Home app.
If you are not aware, Cover Feed takes over the lockscreen on your Android device with a custom lockscreen that plays a slideshow of your friends’ Facebook photos in the background underneath the unlock button. While it sounds great in theory, actually having all your friends’ photos appear on your lockscreen isn’t such a great idea as most of the time the photos aren’t as good as you’d like them to be (not with my friends, at least). Read more »
Motorola has just unleashed its Moto X flagship smartphone and, as tradition dictates, the announcement was accompanied by the release of a few promo videos.
The Moto X got a trio of clips – the first two focus on its unique software features, while the third one is dedicated to its Moto Maker customization software. Read more »
Temple Run franchise is one of the most popular arcade running games in the market beyond any shadow of doubt. The different avatars in the game, which lets you run through the temple streets trying to escape the horde of monkeys in the original Temple Run or the giant ape as in the Temple Run 2 is the main mojo of the game.
Imangi Studios, the developers of the game have now introduced a new character – namely the one of the sprinter Usain Bolt, two times Olympic gold medalist, in its Temple Run 2 game play in an attempt to promote its game. Read more »
A South Korean version of the water-resistant Samsung Galaxy S4 Active called SHV-E470S popped up in GFXBench scores and wouldn’t you know it, it packs a Snapdragon 800 chipset and not the Snapdragon 600 that the international version has.
It’s been a few days since the second generation ASUS Nexus 7 hit the shelves, so we promptly got our hands on the hot hardware. The successor of the most popular slate in the Android realm is currently available in the United States with an entry-level price tag of $229.
The new Nexus 7 is everything a tablet sequel should be. It is more powerful, thinner, lighter, and better put together. It also comes with a brand new Android version to boot . Read more »
The Sony Xperia ZR is the little brother of the Xperia Z and Xperia ZL, and boasts pretty much every key specification they have. The major is the 4.55″ 720p display, which should be kinder to the equally large 2300 mAh battery inside the phone.
Identical chipsets and batteries plus a smaller screen of lower resolution give the Xperia ZR every chance of beating its premium rivals. Read more »
The Sony Xperia Z Ultra is not only an enormous 6.4″ beast of a phablet but it also belongs to a very exclusive group of devices that have the Snapdragon 800 chipset up and running. We got our hands on the device once again and this time we even managed to run a few synthetic benchmarks and see how much of a performance update you are actually getting.
The device should be very zippy courtesy of four Krait 400 cores clocked way up at 2.2 GHz and 2 gigs of RAM. The graphics are dealt with by the latest Adreno 330 GPU, which we’ve heard does a pretty good job. Read more »
The first annual customer satisfaction survey from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) shows a pair of Samsung devices just beating the three most recent Apple smartphones.
The most recent Galaxy S4 flagship was not included because the study was done prior to its release. Read more »
Gameloft has released a new trailer for its upcoming Asphalt 8: Airborne game. The game was featured at the Google Android event last week to show the capabilities of the new Nexus 7 in terms of graphics performance.
And in this trailer you can see some of the game’s glorious graphics, including some in-game footage. That’s a result of the brand new physics engine the game is boasting. Read more »
Developers of the OpenSignal app for Android have used their vast user base to measure the level of fragmentation of Google’s mobile operating system. This year, more than 682,000 devices have been surveyed, almost 11,868 of which were distinct Android devices.
In comparison, in 2012 OpenSignal’s report saw just 3,997 distinct Android devices. Those are huge numbers for sure, and they also make for some interesting revelations. One of them is that a 47.5% of the devices are Samsung-made, which is no surprise considering the company’s recent performances. Read more »
Yesterday we told you that Samsung tweaks the GPU performance of the octa-core Galaxy S4 in order to achieve higher benchmark scores. It was proven both by tests and internal code pointing to specific benchmarks such as Quadrant, AnTuTu, Linpack and GLBenchmark.
Today Samsung issued a response to those allegations. Read more »
Samsung I9500 Galaxy S4, the Exynos 5 Octa versions of the flagship, didn’t make it to most of the markets and remained the more exotic option. Production hiccups and delays plus the lack of LTE radio in the initial batch was the reason Samsung switched to Snapdragon 600 chipset and make the I9505 its worldwide flagship.
Anyway, the octa-core version followed shortly after the Snapdragon 600 was launched. We already had a meeting with the beast and found it slightly faster in benchmarks than its international sibling, but weaker when it comes to battery life. A new development however, suggests that the scores posted by the Exynos GPU are obtained by cheating and the I9500 real life performance is lower than its scores indicate. Read more »
The tablet competition is as heated as ever. While Samsung is seemingly taking a break from the race by serving us with a less than competitive recent batch of tablets, we are eagerly looking around to see what the competition will have on offer in the second half of 2013. Amazon still hasn’t announced its bid but we are already seeing reports that the company’s next gen tablets will make use of some powerful hardware.
According to a report, based entirely on industry sources and eye-witness accounts, the next generation of Kindles will include three devices in three different tiers. The highest tier – the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 – will sport the impressive 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution (up from 1920 x 1200 px) and a quad-core Snapdragon 800 chipset. Read more »
Earlier this year Samsung released a 30s commercial shot at an airport gate promoting the Galaxy S4′s Smart Pause and Air gestures.
There is now a sequel to this ad, promoting the same features but in a different scenario. This time around the Galaxy S4 has already made it to the airliner. Read more »
LG is not keeping the G2, its next Android flagship, a secret. The company even started announcing accessories for the phone, with photos and everything. Okay, it’s a flip cover so not much of the phone itself is visible, but LG could have waited a week until August 7 when the G2 will officially be unveiled.
Anyway, back to the accessory – it’s a flip cover with a window called QuickWindow that lets a small part of the screen show notification and controls from several apps (*cough*). Read more »
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