If you haven’t experienced it first hand, you must have at least heard about the performance issues plaguing the first generation Nexus 7 tablet that was launched last year. Although the tablet worked wonderfully when it was released, performance degraded rapidly over the course of a year to a point where it became nearly unusable.

That is about to change now with the advent of the Android 4.3 update because it brings just what the doctor ordered for the Nexus 7 to solve its performance issues: TRIM support. Read more »

LG has released a waterproof edition of its Optimus G soon-to-be-former flagship, and we’ve got it in our studio for a quick hands-on before the full review.

The LG Optimus GJ features IPX7 water resistance up to 1 meter for 30 minutes, as well as a removable back panel and microSD card support. Read more »

The Android platform continues its dominance in tablet market with its shipments reaching 24.2 million in the second quarter of 2013. According to a research from Strategy Analytics, Android currently has 67 % of the tablet market, while the Apple owned iOS has declined to 28%. Windows is also on the rise, but has only managed to secure a 4.5% slice so far.

The tablet market has seen a new rise with the overall shipments reaching 36.2 million in Q2, 2013. That’s of course, a significant gain over the same period last year, when 24.6 million tablets were shipped. Read more »

Google recently launched its second-generation Nexus 7 tablet and the slate is already available in Google Play Store and several other major retailers across the United States. Google did not announce the launch date of its Nexus 7 2 for other countries, but now the sign-up page of next-gen affordable tablets have appeared in many countries.

It looks like the new Nexus 7 will next hit the stores of UK, Germany, South Korea, Japan, Spain, Canada, France, Australia and India. Read more »

The XOLO Play T1000 is the latest smartphone from the Indian manufacturer Lava. We have previously taken a look at the company’s XOLO X900 smartphone, which also happened to be one of the first Android smartphones to run on an Intel chipset.

The XOLO Play is a bit different from the X900, wherein it runs on a traditional ARM processor. The chipset in question is an NVDIA Tegra 3 and as you can tell from the name the device is being touted as a gaming device. We’ll see how it performs as a gaming device and of course, as an everyday smartphone. Read more »

Samsung has covered almost all kinds of existing tablet screen sizes, but it looks like the South Koreans are planning to take its tablets another step further. According to the popular tipster evleaks, Samsung is working on a 12.2-inch tablet with the model number “SM-P900″.

The Samsung SM-P900 is said to feature a 12.2-inch display with a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels. A leaked user agent profile had earlier suggested a mysterious device with a similar resolution, so SM-P900 could well be a device in the making. Read more »

Riptide GP2 is the successor to last year’s Riptide GP. For those who don’t know, Riptide GP was a racing game but unlike most other games in this genre, this one let you race around a track filled with water on personal watercrafts, doing all sorts of crazy stunts.

The new one takes it several steps ahead with new tracks, new crafts, new stunts, updated visuals and much more. Let’s see how much of an improvement it is over its predecessor. Read more »

Our first encounter with the HTC One mini was shorter than we would have liked so we invited it back for round 2. It made a good first impression, let’s see how it will fare once the feeling of novelty has subsided.

Holding it for a second time, we still think the One mini offers a more premium feel than many high-end phones do. Read more »

It would be a big shame if something on your brand new Nexus 7 2 broke, but as it turns out if it did, it wouldn’t be too hard to repair. iFixit took the new 7” Google tablet apart and awarded it a repairability score of 7/10.

The team also took apart a Chromecast, but mostly out of curiosity – the $35 stick is made out of a plastic enclosure and a motherboard, there’s nothing to repair there. Read more »

When Google announced the new Nexus 7 2, the team promised an almost double (1.8x) increase in performance for the CPU and a quadruple jump for the GPU over the original. Note that the number of pixels on the screen more than doubled with the move to WUXGA resolution.

So, what do the benchmarks show? Read more »

Google unveiled its second-generation Nexus 7 tablet a couple of days ago and the company had announced that the Nexus 7 2 will be available in US from July 30. However, Best Buy one of the official retailers of the slate has jumped the gun and has started shipping out the tablet to those who pre-ordered it.

The Nexus 7 is also available in the Best Buy stores if you are planning to pick it up in person. Read more »

Sony was quick to announce the list of devices that will get Android 4.3 and release an AOSP ROM for the Xperia Tablet Z. The Japanese have since updated the post with good news for Xperia Z and Xperia ZL owners – they get an AOSP build too.

Note that this is the early days and just like the Xperia Tablet Z build things aren’t 100% operational and the builds aren’t suitable for daily use. Read more »

Couple of days ago Google announced the second generation of the Nexus 7, along with a brand new device called Chromecast and Android 4.3. As usual, they had a live stream for those sitting at home to watch.

Unfortunately, if like me you had other things occupying you at that moment, you now have a chance to watch the keynote on YouTube. The entire video is about an hour long so find a comfortable spot and get ready for some Android action. Read more »

When Google announced the Chromecast at their event a couple of days ago, the $35 price was low enough for a lot of people to purchase it without giving it a second thought. What made the deal even better was that Google was giving away three months of Netflix subscription to both current as well as new subscribers, which usually costs almost as much as the Chromecast.

Unfortunately, just one day after announcing the product and the offer, Google has now discontinued it. Google has stated that it is due to the overwhelming demand for the product that they had to withdraw the offer. While the device is still pretty cheap and you can cast Netflix if you’re running it in Chrome, the bait and switch tactic might not sit well with some of the potential customers. Read more »

The Sony Xperia ZR has rushed into our office in dire need of review treatment. Before that though, we are giving it a quick test drive in front of our camera to show you some of its awesome features.

You can’t really mistake the Xperia ZR, can you? Especially with this cool pink paint job, which should really become a favorite of the ladies. It looks the part thanks to the high quality plastic used, which feels very sturdy and premium. Read more »