The Samsung Galaxy S4 Active is a the water resistant version of the regular S4 and just like it has a Snapdragon 600 chipset with the four Krait 300 cores clocked at 1.9GHz and a 2,600mAh battery.

But the two differ on one key factor for the battery test – the screen. AMOLED and LCDs both have their strengths and weaknesses, so let’s see which one does better when you draw the line. Read more »

Skype for Android has received a huge update to version 4.0, alongside a bevy of new interface changes and optimizations.

The new Skype for Android 4.0 takes many design cues from Windows 8′s Modern UI. Read more »

An Android 4.3 build for the Samsung Galaxy S4 leaked a few days ago and it was found to contain some hidden enhancements that point the way to some new features in the future. They have to do with notifications.

The first is a Notifications screen, which acts as history of all your recent notifications, even the ones you’ve dismissed (those are the grayed out ones, the others are notifications still visible in the notification area). Read more »

In a strange turn of events, it seems an ASUS support representative revealed the specifications for the next generation Nexus 7 tablet. And all it took was asking nicely.

Someone contacted ASUS live chat support and enquired about the next generation Nexus 7 tablet and the support rep was more than willing to divulge the information. First of all, he said that the tablet is expected to release before the ending of Q2, which he says should be at the end of July (never mind that Q2 actually ends in June). Read more »

As one of the premier designers and manufacturers of rugged smartphone cases, Urban Armor Gear (UAG) has released a quartet of cases for the Samsung Galaxy S4. Available in four different colors, the covers feature a patented design with a hard outer shell and soft, impact-resistant core.

I spent some quality time with the UAG Aero and Navigator cases for the Samsung Galaxy S4. Finished in dark blue and white respectively, the duo features the same design, construction and functionality. Hit the break to learn more about the Urban Armor Gear offerings! Read more »

The budget 7″ Android tablet market has been enjoying quite a lot of attention from a number of manufacturers and the latest device to join in on the fun is a refresh of one of the very first small tablets – the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0.

The third-generation of 7″ Galaxy Tab has just hit the shelves and it feels nicely polished and put together. Read more »

After releasing on the Google Play Store recently, the Vine app is now available on Kindle Fire. The app requires Android 4.0 and above, so can work on every version of the Kindle Fire, except for the very first model.

For those who are not aware, Vine is a new social networking service for sharing short, six second videos. It used to be known as the Instagram of videos, until recently when Instagram itself added support for videos. The Vine app for Kindle Fire is the first tablet version of the app, as it is only available on smartphones on iOS and Android. Having said that, the UI is similar to the Play Store version of the app and not really optimized for the big screen as such. Read more »

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 is arguably the most interesting of the latest generation Samsung slates. It’s an affordable dual-core tablet running on the latest Android 4.2 Jelly Bean OS and the 1280 x 800 pixel resolution isn’t as big an issue as it is on the 10″ screen of the Galaxy Tab 3 8.0. Samsung’s proprietary TouchWiz is on top, of course, full of useful apps and services.

The SamsungGalaxy Tab 3 8.0 is a thinner, lighter and S-Pen-less version of the Galaxy Note 8.0. It’s cheaper too, so you may be willing to forgive the less capable chipset. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy S4 has won two award from UK consumer research company Which?. It found that Samsung’s Android flagship is not only the fastest smartphone currently on sale, but also the one with the best battery life.

Which? determined this by running the Geekbench 2 benchmark on selected smartphones. The Galaxy S4 got on top with 3188 points with the HTC One sitting in the second place with 2798. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 is the largest member of the new Tab 3 lineup, and it has stopped by our studio for a quick hands-on before it gets whisked away for a full review.

The Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 is one the first Samsung tablets to run on Intel’s new Atom Z2560 chipset, and we’re eager to see how it fares under Samsung’s Android Jelly Bean build with TouchWiz optimizations. Read more »

The last update Google made to Gmail for Android was quite substantial and included a lot of user interface changes. One of them was the removal of the Delete button, which caused a hurricane of negative feedback. Today, Google has responded by bringing back the Delete button in a small update for its mail client on Android.

Other than that, the latest version of the Gmail (v4.5.2) includes an undisclosed number of bugfixes as well as the feature to select multiple emails by tapping on their sender’s photo. Read more »

Google has updated its Google Earth apps for Android and iOS. The new 7.1.1 version brings a few major improvements including Street View.

The rest of the improvements in the new Google Earth include a new left hand panel for easier browsing and switching between layers. There is also updated directions and search results. Read more »

The newly announced Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE-A packs a fast Snapdragon 800 chipset (early benchmarks look great) and an LTE-Advanced modem, allowing downloads of up to 150Mbps. That’s faster than the regular S4, but by how much? Samsung posted a video putting the two head to head to demonstrate the difference.

The tests were run in different locations and times of day. The two smartphones had to download different files – install an app from the Play Store or download a large video file. Read more »

Along with its launch on the Google Play store, the kernel source code for the HTC One “Google Edition” has been released on HTCDev.

Also revealed is that the device won’t be receiving its Android updates directly from Google, since it is not technically a Nexus device. Read more »

A few days ago, NVIDIA announced that their Android-based portable gaming console – the NVIDIA Shield – will start shipping today, on June 27, along with a price drop from $349 to $299. Unfortunately for NVIDIA and those who were waiting to get their hands on the Shield, it seems it will take a bit longer to actually start shipping.

Citing a mechanical issue that turned up during quality-assurance testing, NVIDIA has decided to push back the launch date of the Shield. NVIDIA isn’t giving any specific dates this time, saying only “next month” as the approximate launch date for the Shield. Read more »