LG G Flex 2 rumors suggest curved screen might be shrinking

With the iPhone 6 launched, and IFA behind us, there’s not a lot in the way of high-profile smartphone events coming up for the next several months. CES looms ahead in January, and while there are a few devices between now and then we’re looking forward to, this can still feel like a bit of a slow period. A year ago, though, fall became ground zero for the arrival of the curved smartphone, with both Samsung and LG announcing such plans. But where have curved screens taken us in the days since the Galaxy Round and G Flex? We’ve seen curved smartwatches, like the new Gear S, as well as displays with curved components, like on the Galaxy Note Edge, but not another phone quite like either of those first two. That may soon change, as rumors breathe new life into the idea of an LG G Flex 2.

This is hardly the first time we’ve wondered about a second-gen G Flex, but it’s been months since we’ve heard anything new. This new report out of India claims that the G Flex 2 will launch before the end of the year, and that it will be more compact than the first model.

There’s not a ton of side-bezel space to work with on the original G Flex, so a more compact model sounds to us like it would likely be one with a smaller screen than that six-incher. At the same time, though, this source talks about a resolution bump, and while not explicitly saying “quad HD,” the assertion that the G Flex 2′s display will be “better than full HD” gives us little else to expect.

That’s well and good, but we’re less concerned with size and resolution for the G Flex 2′s screen, and more about LG fixing some of the quality issues we had with the first model’s display. We’re also curious what became of that supposedly super-unique feature the G Flex 2 would deliver, one more notable than the original’s self-healing plastic. At least, there’s not a peep along those lines here.

Source: Gizbot
Via: GSM Arena

Carrier confirms iPhone 6 demand exceeding predecessors

Have you pre-ordered your iPhone 6 yet? Maybe looking for some phablet action with an iPhone 6 Plus pre-order? If so, you’re probably in good company, with Apple fans everywhere getting ready to let the company’s latest smartphones into their lives. But for as much enthusiasm as we’re seeing, this new direction for Apple isn’t without controversy: will fans of the company’s smaller phones be willing to embrace these larger designs? We’re finally starting to hear some carriers weigh in on the public demand for these phones, and to hear that message, Apple has nothing to be worried about.

According to an AT&T exec, this year’s demand for the iPhone 6 is in excess of what the carrier saw with either the iPhone 5S/5C launch last year, or even the iPhone 5 the year before.

While we might be getting ahead of ourselves, that sure has us feeling positive about the iPhone 6′s prospects. Sure, no one expected this guy to be a flop – it’s Apple, after all. But the fact that AT&T is seeingincreased interest, especially with big changes like we’re getting this year, really seems to speak to the smartphone-buying public’s willingness to accept these new, larger iPhone sizes.

Source: Ryan Knutson (Twitter)
Via: BGR

Motorola Quark spotted getting ready for Verizon in FCC docs; our new Droid ?

Those of you Motorola fans who have been able to see past all the buzz surrounding the Moto 360, the new Moto X and Moto G models, and all the fun little accessories the manufacturer has just announced may have noticed us talking about the possibility of having a new Droid model launch for Verizon. That all really picked up earlier this month when the old DroidLanding Twitter account got back into action, most recently hinting at a Droid with support for Motorola’s Turbo Charger. We had already discussed the possibility of a Droid Turbo, a phone that may have been under development as codename Quark, and now some new FCC documents seem to reveal just such a model.

The FCC paperwork describes a handset that’s slightly larger than the new Moto X, with all the sort of band support we’d expect from a Verizon model. Most tellingly of all, the phone’s software build contains the string “QUARK_VERIZON.”

Not a ton of useful hardware details are confirmed in this paperwork, but a few important ones do show up. For one, there’s explicit mention of support for the Turbo Charger, helping to connect this device to those DroidLanding teasers. We also see references to wireless charging, though knowing US carriers as we do, we wouldn’t bank on that being here until the phone is officially confirmed.

That confirmation could be here in just a few weeks. Last time DroidLanding started tweeting, we were a little over a month away from a launch. As of now, we’re only ten days in, but that has us feeling confident that official word could arrive within a month.

Source: FCC
Via: Droid Life

How much will Apple keep from each Apple Pay transaction?

It’s impossible to talk about this week’s launch announcement of Apple Pay, the NFC-enabled mobile payment system available with the new iPhones and Apple Watch, without drawing comparisons to Google Wallet. And with good reason, as the two services are more alike than either company would probably like to admit – at the end of the day, they’re both moving money from A to B, and there aren’t that many ways to spice things up. But now one small, though still notable difference is emerging, as we learn how Apple intends to profit from Apple Pay’s use.

With Google Wallet, we were always told that Google wasn’t making any money off the service. In fact, employees reported that the company actually lost money through various transaction fees, and its interest in promoting the system was more along the lines of gathering purchase data to help improve ad targeting.

Apple, on the other hand, will reportedly be taking a cut of each Apple Pay transaction. A very, very small one, granted – just three twentieths of one percent – but when you consider how many people are buying the new iPhones, and how many of those are likely to make payments through Apple Pay, that can start to add up.

The money comes out of the banks’ end, not your pocket, so this is ultimately of little concern to the user. Well, unless you own a bank. In which case, can we be friends?

Source: The Financial Times
Via: BGR

The iPhone 6 from an Android user’s perspective

 

Apple has announced the iPhone 6 – in two different sizes, no less. But what did users really get? The next version of the iPhone, that’s for sure, but how does it compare with what Android users already have – and what they don’t.

Screens

First off, let’s talk about sizes. The iPhone 6 comes in both 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch versions. The former is a little better than 720p resolution, the latter is 1080p. If those numbers sound familiar, they should! The Nexus 4, released in 2012, had a 4.7-inch screen with a little better than 720p resolution (better, in fact, than the iPhone 6).

The Nexus 5 has a 4.95-inch screen at 1080p, just a little smaller than the iPhone 6 Plus. Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 even had a slightly larger screen with much higher pixel density than the iPhone 6 Plus.

Would you be surprised if I told you that Steve Job was opposed to both the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus! When talking about the iPhone’s then 3.5-inch screen, the late Steve Jobs went on the record about phones with larger screens: “You can’t get your hand around it … no one’s going to buy that”. Referring to its size, more than once, Jobs (and other executives at Apple) commented that the iPhone was “perfect”, regardless of the incarnation at the time of their sentiment. Every time a new size is released, these statements are proven wrong – again and again.

NFC Payments

Not to rain on anyone’s parade or anything, but I’ve been able to use Google Wallet and other NFC payment methods on my Androids since 2011 — on the Nexus S! That’s almost three years ago. Sure, Apple’s implementing it differently, and no, as far as we can tell you won’t be able to tap to beam like you can on Android (let alone tap to beam with an Android), but it’s a step in the right direction.

Way to go, Apple!

64-bit

Android still doesn’t run 64-bit apps like iOS can, though support is on its way once Android L is released. When it is, rather than requiring every developer to modify and re-deploy their apps to work with 64-bit (which is what Apple did), Android will automatically run the majority of apps as 64-bit applications thanks to the way Android’s VM is built.

Put simply, it’s very likely that Android will have more 64-bit apps available once Android L is out than Apple has, even though Apple had a sizable head start.

Biometrics

Apple incorporates a biometric fingerprint scanner in both of its new phones. Android, on the other hand, opts for facial recognition for its biometric login capabilities, though some OEMs have extended Android to work with a fingerprint scanner, too.

Built-in storage

If you’re willing to pay a fairly hefty premium, you can get an iPhone in configurations with up to 128GB storage. Most Android’s only opt for 32 or 64GB, but many offer additional storage through the addition of an sdcard slot – something Apple doesn’t do.

What’s more, Apple’s onboard storage is very, very expensive! Apple charges an extra US$100 to go from 16 to 64GB, and a hundred more if you want to double that (putting the 128GB iPhone 6 Plus just under US$1,000).

iPhone 6 vs Android

We could go on and on about notification actions, widgets, custom keyboards, cross-app communication, default apps, wireless charging, and more (all of which Android has had for years), but I think you see the point.

Android has everything that the new iPhone 6 has. It’s nothing new to us. So, enjoy your “new” features! But keep an eye on what’s new on Android, because you’ll probably be getting it on the iPhone 6S when it’s released – next year.

Apple becoming more brave than iterative ?

A time not too far into the past, Apple’s mobile products were the gold standard of the industry. The iPhone dictated the direction of the coming year, and it was one of the few smartphones with incredible design and a consistent and reliable user experience. Further, tablet-optimized applications were made almost solely for Apple’s iPad.

However, Apple has been slow to update its software, hardware innovation has almost slowed to a crawl, and other OEMs are closing the gap in many areas – tablet market share, tablet-optimized apps, and even customer satisfaction.

Apple got comfortable. Just take a look at the past four iPhone iterations. It introduced a new design with the iPhone 4. It was flat, unlike the 3G and 3GS before it. It was slim, sleek, and beautiful – glass on both sides. It was daring. The iPhone 4S looked almost identical, save for the updated antenna to accommodate for the data drop-off issue more widely known as Antennagate. The iPhone 5, despite Apple stating it was brand new and redesigned from the ground up, was a taller, slimmer version of the iPhone 4S. More vertical pixels were added to maintain the Retina Display qualifier, it received a newer chip, and a better camera. And the iPhone 5s was a iterative upgrade to the iPhone 5, only introducing a 64-bit SoC, fingerprint scanner, and a few other odds and ends that didn’t really change the overall experience much.

None of this is to say any of the iPhone iterations have been bad. They haven’t been perfect, but each model has been a cautious step, a calculated improvement so marginal it’s difficult to recommend users to upgrade from last year’s model. This was good because it kept consumers on a two-year upgrade cycle happy, but it also allowed practically every other smartphone manufacturer to surpass Apple in many ways – specifications, usability, functionality, and especially desirability.

Aside from almost every high-end Android smartphone being upgraded to at least 2GB of RAM, up to 64GB of storage, many with microSD card slots, high-res cameras (often with optical image stabilization), insanely fast quad-core CPUs and multi-core GPUs, in this time, the average Android smartphone grew from around 3.7-inches to now well over 5-inches.

Meanwhile, Apple maintained that its 4-inch display was the most logical screen size around, that it fit the human hand perfectly and could easily be used one-handed. This is why the iPhone 5 was only taller, not wider, than the 4S. That’s why, from the very start of the larger iPhone rumors, it never seemed terribly practical. A 4.7-inch iPhone sounded highly unlikely and the thought of a 5.5-inch iPhone was preposterous.

However, after Apple’s iPhone 6 event yesterday, it’s apparent that the Apple we once knew has slumped into a “me, too” company.

From the size of the iPhone 6 Plus to its display resolution, it’s more like any other high-end Android smartphone than any other Apple product has ever been. 5.5-inches with 1080p resolution is an increasingly common spec for high-end Android handsets. The Oppo Find 7a and OnePlus One both feature 5.5-inch 1080p displays.

Even more common than that is 4.7-inches. The HTC One X, One M7, Moto X, LG Optimus G, and countless other popular smartphones over the years have come with 4.7-inch displays, both with 1080p and 720p resolutions.

None of this is to day Apple made the wrong choice to go larger or choose smartphone sizes that are increasingly popular among consumers. It’s actually very smart. The difference between a 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch display is large enough to justify two different sizes and should provide enough size disparity to appease users with both large and small hands.

However, my point is that Apple is becoming more brave… because it has to. And rather than being at the forefront of innovation, it’s following other manufacturers.

Take the iPad mini, for example. The late Steve Jobs condemned smaller tablets, stating they would need to come with sandpaper so users could file down their fingertips to points so they could use them. However, other OEMs, such as Amazon and Samsung, found some success in the smaller tablet market. Apple followed.

The wearables market is a bit different, though. Everyone is just getting into wearables and the industry needs someone to shake it up – something Android Wear, Pebble, Samsung’s countless Gear watches, and the dozens of other forgettable smartwatches have failed to do. The Apple Watch isn’t anything particularly amazing (and it’s not much to look at), but it will build a platform for the launch of new wearable functions all around, which is both necessary and great for wearables as a whole. Few will argue that Apple will bring attention to the wearables market – all will benefit.

This very same theme can be found in the software, though, like third-party sharing, third-party keyboards, and even Control Center and Notification Center, all of which were features on Android years ago.

This isn’t me pointing out that Google and Android OEMs were first, but rather Apple has lost almost all of its originality, particularly in the smartphone market. The biggest differentiation is how Apple does one-handed mode (a double-tap of the home button shifts the top half of the UI down to the middle) and the like.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I quite like that the iPhone 6 Plus is 5.5-inches. I’ve been begging for a larger iPhone for over three years, as well as third-party sharing, and a host of other features. Apple has seemingly done it all, but all in the most unimaginative way ever. And of course, all the while, it’s being pitched to us like “displaying more on a single page” is something totally new with the tagline “Bigger than better.”

I’ll be pre-ordering the iPhone 6 Plus on Friday – no question. I may even opt for the 64 or 128GB models. I haven’t decided yet. But Apple is certainly losing some of its pizzaz. It’s just that this lack of true innovation begs one question: how long until Apple pulls a BlackBerry?

5 things the Apple Watch already does better than the competition.

The Apple Watch is more than four months from release (at the very soonest) and any hard information we have at the moment comes directly from the company itself. Crucial details, like battery life and the technology the watch uses to connect with your iPhone, remain hidden for the moment. We don’t know how vast swaths of the interface work, and we honestly have no idea what to expect from this device the first time we strap one onto our wrist.

But Apple spent over an hour talking about its newest product category at yesterday’s iPhone 6 launch event, and we got a pretty good look at what the company’s planning for its first-ever wearable. If executed properly, some of Apple’s achievements here could easily eclipse every other smart watch on the market today. Here’s the five areas I think the Apple Watch really shines relative to the competition.

Customizability

Current smartwatches are actually pretty good about this. You can get watch bands in a variety of colors for all the devices in Samsung’s Gear lineup, and you can change the type of band with watches like Pebble Steel. The Martian family of watches comes in several shapes and sizes, and the new Android Wearofferings can be tailored to a limited extent.

The Apple Watch eclipses all this with a portfolio of builds and bands that’s staggering in its attention to personalization. The watch comes in two sizes, with any of three finishes (stainless steel alloy, aluminum alloy or 18K gold), and a choice of six different straps (sport band, leather loop, leather modern buckle, simple leather classic buckle, stainless steel link bracelet and Milanese loop). All of those bands fasten using different methods, and some are available in more than one color. Each one is built for a specific use case, as well: the sport band uses a sweat-resistant synthetic rubber, for example, whereas the Milanese loop is an infinitely-adjustable metallic weave better suited to fancy occasions.

Strap swapping

Switching out one strap for another is accomplished via a new attachment method that’s typical of Apple in its simplicity. The straps are fitted with protruding end caps which slide into recessed slots in the Apple Watch, locking into place with what look to be spring-loaded grab plates on their inner faces.

Wristwatch aficionados may take exception to my listing this point as an advantage: after all, we praised manufacturers like Pebble for incorporating 22mm standard fittings into their watches, and we continue to prefer industry standards to proprietary solutions. But the Apple Watch’s system as pictured in the demonstration requires no pins, no tools, no long fingernails to activate a nestled springbar: it just slides and locks into place. When you want to release it, press a button and it slides out. I’m not always a do-it-yourselfer, so anything that can help me avoid spending $7-$10 at my local watch shop every time I want to swap my watch band, I count as a success.

Sizing options

I touched on this in the customizability section, but it’s so important it deserves its own subhead. Ever since smartwatches hit the mainstream, a bunch of us have wondered exactly when manufacturers would start paying attention to the smaller average wrist size of half the population of the planet: women.

While some firms have brought us more petite watches already –Mykronoz has a really wide selection of form factors– and devices like Pebble Steel are small enough for some, there hasn’t been a device like the 1.5-inch Apple Watch. This is a wearable that combines a proportionately large screen with a small casing and a potentially huge ecosystem, something which hasn’t been done before. The smaller size might finally get people like Mobile Geeks’s Nicole Scott to stop asking OEMs where all the women-sized smartwatches are (listen to the latest Pocketnow Weekly for the full story on that).

Useful gimmicks

We periodically slam outfits like Samsung for bundling superfluous features into its smartphones and wearables. Apple hasn’t entirely resisted the urge to do the same in the Apple Watch –sending people your current heartbeat lands somewhere between creepy and revolting on the WTF scale– but the watch’s other “gimmicks” are really compelling.

It’s really cool, for example, that hitting a button on the side of the watch brings up a list of your Apple Watch-toting friends, any of whom can be contacted with a subtle vibration via a quick double-tap on the display. You can establish a direct connection with them using the watch’s walkie-talkie feature, call them, or dictate a text message using Siri (a more accurate solution than some others on the market). You can also pay for purchases with the watch’s NFC chip if you’re enrolled in the new Apple Pay service.

The interface

The foundation of what Apple’s done with its new wearable interface is predictable: the sapphire-fronted face of the watch is dominated by a touch screen that responds to taps and swipes, just like most other smartwatches on the market. But there the similarity ends. Apple’s new display also reacts to force, recognizing a harder press as a kind of substitute for the long-press currently in vogue.

More impressive is the new watch’s “digital crown,” a stroke of genius-level simplicity. Rather than a simple side-mounted button, the Apple Watch’s crown rotates just like that of an old analog timepiece. It scrolls or zooms depending on context, keeping your hand off to the side so your fingers don’t cover up the small display. And it’s still pressable: a single push returns you to the watch’s homescreen, and a long-press summons Siri.

On top of all that, the watch’s sound effects and so-called “taptic engine” work together to provide instant feedback to inputs. Vibrations are subtle and highly localized, minimizing the heavy buzz common to some other watches, and they’re not confined to notifications: as Yahoo’s David Pogue reports, apps can use the taptic engine to provide GPS directions by feel. In the same article, Pogue calls the sounds the watch produces “clear and full of personality,” something which can’t be said for almost any other current smartwatch.

No first-generation product is perfect, as the underpowered and overheated 2008-era MacBook Air can attest. When the Apple Watch finally drops in early 2015, you can be sure it’ll come with a boatload of deficiencies: the company’s ominous omission of battery life information and its reluctance to demonstrate the awkward on-wrist calling mode provide some early insights here. We fully expect to have a significant list of complaints when Apple’s first wearable platform debuts, as we did when we reviewed Google’s Android Wear.

But Tim Cook didn’t say his company had built a perfect product. He said that Apple believed its watch would “redefine what people expect from its category.” Given the public’s low expectations of wearables to date, that may not be a terribly high bar to set, but if even half of the above standouts deliver on their promises, he’ll have been right.

The iPhone 6 makes me want to return to iOS, here’s why

This has been a very interesting year for smartphone technology. Seven years ago we would’ve never thought that smartphones would be as big as they are today, nor that we’d have better display resolution on our phones, than we do on the average television set. This year 2K displays, waterproof technology, stereo speakers, aluminum, and even the emerging LTE Advanced are the new thing, even though only a few smartphone manufacturers are pulling most of these off.

After seven years, I finally decided to switch the iPhone as my daily driver because of all these trends. Surely my choice for the HTC One M8 wasn’t based on the late-2014 trends, but at the time of its launch back in the spring, it was as hot as a phone could get. Til this day, I still feel that HTC has launched an amazing smartphone, and I have nothing but praise for my user experience so far.

Apple’s launch of the iPhone 6 shouldn’t be a reason for me to go back to the iPhone, right? If we compared these phones through their respective spec sheets, the HTC One M8 is still a much better phone than both of the iPhones that were announced. If we don’t consider the primary camera, the One M8 has a faster processor; a bigger and better display, stereo speakers, expandable storage, a better front-facing camera, an IR Blaster, and I could continue listing more reasons why it’s superior to the iPhone 6.

If you’re still wondering why the title of this editorial says that the iPhone 6 makes me want to return to iOS, even after I’ve clearly called its spec sheet inferior, let’s go through the reasons why.

The iPhone 6 fixes some of my reasons to move to Android

One of the biggest reasons why I moved away from the iPhone 5s for the HTC One M8 was because I felt that HTC gave me more value for my money and also managed to do so elegantly. The Spec sheet was one thing, but it was also the user experience and the beauty of the One M8. HTC did a great job with Sense 6, and having that bigger display made things more delightful.

Surely the iPhone 6 doesn’t have the One M8’s specifications, but if you know anything about iPhones, you know that’s really irrelevant. Apple has always done a great job at launching fast phones on efficient specs, and with the iPhone 6, you finally have the option for a bigger display on that same guaranteed performance. Add the beautiful design of the phone to the mix, and it’s hard to admit that there is some desire involved. Whether it’s for media consumption, reading a book on the go, watching a video or playing a game require a big display, and the iPhone 6 finally solves that. iOS may not be your favorite OS because of its choice for Home Screen design, but if you leave that out, it still is one of the best and most reliable operating systems in the world, and with its selection of apps, it’s hard to go wrong with its user experience as well.

iOS 8 makes the Apple ecosystem more compelling

For the longest time, Apple has been the only company that actually gives you the added value of owning more than just one of its products. If you buy a Windows Computer, you’ll notice that there isn’t much benefit in owning a Windows Phone. The same can be said about owning a Chromebook or an Android Tablet if you also have an Android phone. After using the HTC One M8 for a few months, I’ve learned that there is a lot that I miss about Apple’s way of doing things.

For example: I own a Mac for my video editing duties, and I own an iPad because it’s still the better tablet to choose from. I know there are a ton of third party options to sync your photos with, but none works better and more seamlessly than iCloud. I take a photo now, and it’s available everywhere in a few seconds. I buy a song here, and it downloads everywhere. My iPad apps usually have an iPhone version of the app; where as using an Android phone requires me to purchase the same app twice.

With iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, features like Continuity make things even better. Get a call on your iPhone, pick it up on the Mac. Get an SMS on the iPhone that’s charging in the other room, but it’s available on your Mac an iPad too. This added value is definitely something that keeps you locked to the Apple ecosystem, and that makes it worth buying in, coming back, or missing it all together.

The Apple Watch

As much as I wanted to buy a Moto 360 to go with my HTC One M8, the terrible reports on battery life keep me away. Our own Android Wear reviews keep me away as well. It seems that Google still needs to work on getting it right, so much so that I feel that the only company that actually understands what’s important to a smartwatch is still Pebble.

Today’s announcement of the Apple Watch might have left with a little disappointment because of the launch date, but everything else that I saw makes me believe that Apple is on to something big here. Obviously we have to test it to confirm, but the design options, the software, and the integration with iOS 8 and the iPhone 6 make want to wait for it. It doesn’t work with anything other than an iPhone anyway, so I’m pretty much forced to go back if I want to try it. My trusty first-generation Pebble will keep me company during that period, which in many ways works better with iOS than with Android.

The bottom line

Your mileage may vary. If you don’t own an iPad or a Mac, or if you really like what you see with Android Wear, then any Android smartphone would be a better pick for you. My particular case is different, though I’m sure I do speak for many of you as well. Owning Apple products has its fair share of benefits, and until Google and Microsoft figure out ways to improve the integration between products, many of us will remain drifting back to iPhones over and over.

Which is your case? Would you consider ditching your current device for an iPhone 6? Let us know in the comments down bellow.

Apples iWatch specs.

We are just one day away from Apple’s event where we expect the company to launch the iPhone 6. If you’ve been following the rumors over the last couple of weeks, you’d think the iWatch wouldn’t make the cut until a future event, and it turns out that that might be wrong. New leaks claim that the iWatch will be announced tomorrow as well, but it’s not until today that we get to see what it looks like.

For the last couple of months, all we’ve seen are concept designs of the iWatch. Today we get the first leaked photos of the device’s schematics, and even an extra photo of what is reported to be its housing. At the moment we notice that Quanta is Apple’s manufacturing partner for the iWatch, which could explain why we haven’t seen the usual batch of leaks that we’re used to from Foxconn. The details are scarce, but let’s go through what we can make out of these photos.

The first batch of reports claims that there will be 8 different options for the iWatch. Two different models with different sizes, and then each with as many as four color options to choose from. These BCM images reveal how the product has evolved from its P2B prototype stage, to its engineering validation test stage (EVT).

There is also a photo of the housing, though this one is clearly edited in order to not reveal the leaker’s identity. So far these leaks claim that the device will have a built-in microphone and speaker to support Siri, it’ll be waterproof up to 20 meters, and might also have a disappointing day of battery life.

We’ll keep you posted as more details emerge regarding Apple’s first wearable.

Source: Redit
Via: Mac Rumors

Moto 360 to be carried by At&t in USA

The Moto 360 may be met with availability issues right now, but we’re hoping that’ll all clear up soon – and when those problems get sorted out and the dust clears, there’ll be an additional retailer stocking the Moto 360: AT&T. The wireless carrier has revealed its plans today to carry the Android Wear-powered timepiece as an accessory.

AT&T joins a growing list of Motorola, Google Play, Best Buy, and Verizon Wireless as one of the places you can grab a Moto 360, but because of the supply/demand levels right now (presumably), we don’t yet have a date or a price for the version AT&T will have.

All the retailers so far have stuck to $249 for the standard leather band option, and $299 for the metal band (that’s coming later this year, and is currently unavailable), so we’re fairly sure AT&T will go with the same for its very own Moto 360.

If you’re interested in Moto 360 coverage, we’ve certainly got you covered there. You can check out our launch post, our post covering its specs.

Source: AT&T

OPPO FIND 7 review : Indian 4G version.

In India the most famous brands are Samsung , Micromax , Karbon , Apple , Xolo etc.
but the new kid in the block OPPO looks to steal the show with its first 4G flagship the Find 7.

About Device :

This is a flagship killer at the cost of Google's NEXUS line up with a spec line up of
Qualcomm's Snapdragon 801 quad core SoC backed up by 3 GB ram and a graphics processor of Adrino 330 gpu , its footprint  measures 152.6mm tall, 75mm wide, and 9.2mm thick and weighs at 173 grams. The memory that you can physically use comes in a 32 GB varient and accomadates an external memory slot of support upto 128 GB. The display is of IPS type with a  large slab of Gorilla Glass 3 takes up most of the phone’s face. Underneath that sits one of the best displays we’ve seen to date: a quad HD IPS panel with a resolution of 2560 by 1440 pixels, and a pixel density of 538. Sure, you can debate on the general need of such a high resolution on a smartphone, and you can definitely see both the advantages and disadvantages, but we have to accept the fact that technology is moving forward, and manufacturers are eager to show off their potential in both employing the latest tech, as well as pushing the envelope. The unboxing of the phone felt very premium as the packaging is equivalent to the standars of that as samsung or apple.

A 13-megapixel Sony Exmor BSI sensor takes care of your primary shooting needs, and it does so with style. About the only complaint we have here is the lack of optical image stabilization, but more
on that in our camera section below.

We’ve already mentioned the 5MP wide angle front-facer, so we’ll jump straight to the 3,000mAh battery, and the connectivity options which include USB OTG, Bluetooth 4.0, 5G WiFi 802.11 b/g/n (with WiFi Direct and WiFi Display capabilities), GPS, and NFC. The radio supports LTE, but frequencies depend on the market.

Software :

Even though the device feels alot premium with its plastic build its a hiccup on  the software side with its heart pounding on a year old software release of android ie the 4.3 jellybean version with a huge custom UI ( version of android ) known as ColorOS running the show.

The user interface is packed with features, many of which you will probably never use. Gestures are a big deal for OPPO, apparently, and you can add your own custom gestures to the list, if you want to launch an app or instruct the phone to do specific tasks. Some of these are system-wide, and some are available while the screen is off. You can double-tap on the home button to both wake the device and put it to sleep. Some gestures are universally handy, while some will be useful for only a handful of users.


The Settings menu is divided into three categories, but that’s something other OEMs do, like Samsung and LG, to name a couple. Pulling down from the top left of the display brings up the gesture panel, but if you don’t use any gestures, you can disable them, and the standard notification tray will pop up, just like when swiping down from anywhere to the right of the carrier name.

Then there are the hidden quirks. There’s no easy way of linking contacts that are not identically named in the Contacts app, for instance, and there are a variety of other small annoyances you need to live with. If you like skeuomorphs and colored, candy-like icons, you’ll like the stock looks of the Find 7. The UI is definitely not among the worst one we’ve used, but we would have at least appreciated a more recent version of Android, if stock isn’t an out-of-the-box option.

CAMERA :


The most important high point of the phone is its camera and an awesome point is that the device is capable of taking 50 MP resolution pictures with its 13 MP shooter thanks to the software that OPPO packs in with the device. Its exceptional at reproduction of colours and also is able to shoot 4K video .
Yes, we do miss optical image stabilization and we wish it was included; since it’s not, you’ll have to keep the phone very steady to combat soft focus and blur in low light conditions without using the flash.

The camera user interface is pretty simple and straightforward. You access settings from the cog to choose options like resolution, storage, white balance, scenes, video modes, etc. There’s a dedicated shortcut for flash behavior control, one for switching to the front camera, a persistent shutter bottom, one for video recording, and another one for shooting modes (normal, HDR, Ultra-HD, beauty, panorama, slow shutter, audio photo, GIF, and RAW).

The camera produces great results outdoors, but nowadays, most smartphone cameras are capable of delivering good stills in optimal conditions. It’s in low light where it becomes tricky, and where you really wish the camera had OIS. Under these circumstances, if you don’t have a steady hand, you’ll often induce motion blur in your stills. Otherwise, you’ll have to deal with occasionally washed-out colors and some noise, but we’ve definitely seen worse cameras on other flagships.

SAMPLE IMAGES : ( including ultra hd mode image )

Of particular significance is Oppo’s Ultra-HD mode for stills. This mode outputs 50-megapixel images while using a 13-megapixel sensor. These images are often sharper, with more detail, and overall better than your regular 13MP stills, and we found ourselves preferring this mode over the normal one. You also don’t necessarily have to hold your breath to shoot in this mode, which is a plus. It’s definitely not Lumia 1020-like post-shooting reframing, but it allows you an extra level of creativity which you will likely appreciate.







Videos captured on the Find 7 have good audio and overall image quality. Depending on your usage scenario and conditions, the camera will sometimes find it hard to adjust white balance, or exposure, on the fly. Sometimes you’ll also have to manually tap the screen to force focus when the camera is
not getting your intentions; it takes some time to master its capabilities.

VIDEO SAMPLE :

PERFORMANCE :

Back-firing speakers or not, the stereo ones on the OPPO FIND 7 deliver. We can easily compare it with the HTC One M8, and, it is our conclusion that the only thing that makes the HTC One M8 win this battle (by a small margin, though), is the placement: if the Find 7 had front-firing speakers, it would sound better than HTC’s flagship. Listening to music or talking on the phone using speakerphone mode is a joy.

Hard as we tried, we didn’t manage to bog down the Find 7. That’s mostly due to the flagship specs it packs on the inside. Most of the time during our usage when we had to wait for the phone to execute a specific task, it was due to the internet speed. We think about the only bottleneck you’ll run into while using the Find 7 is your data connection. The phone launches and switches apps in a blink of an eye, and if you didn’t have to wait for information to load through your data channels, it would be pretty instant.

However, it does get very warm every now and then, especially when running demanding games for longer periods of time. That’s normal, and a behaviour we definitely observed on competing phones, like the LG G3, or Sony Xperia Z2.

Voice quality is good on both sides, and so is speakerphone performance. Network signal is on par with any other flagship out there, and data performance delivers, depending on your service provider. We’re using Indian model on AIRTEL, so your mileage could vary, depending on your region or carrier. We also can’t opine on LTE performance as of yet.

Expect a hiccup-free user experience while running daily tasks on the Find 7. Its internals make sure you won’t see any frame-drops, or stutters. However, battery life is something which we wished was just a tad better. We don’t necessarily refer to heavy use of the phone in gaming or imaging modes, but a 3,000 mAh battery should easily be enough for one and a half days. Instead, expect a full day under moderate usage, with definitely the need to top off your charge towards the end of the day (maybe half way through) if you’re playing games. Luckily, with Oppo’s VOOC quick charging, that only takes about 30 minutes for a 75% charge.
 

Pros

+ Gorgeous display
+ Fast charging thanks to Oppo’s VOOC charging
+ Exceptional performance
+ Great build quality
+ Attractive LED notification

Cons
- Large footprint will alienate some potential users
- 3GB app cap for installing applications to internal storage
- Currently running outdated version of Android

PRICING AND AVAILABILITY :

The OPPO FIND 7 is an exclusive to flipkart.com in India and is aggressively priced for Rs. 37990 which makes it alot more desirable even though it has a few cons.
Its available throughout the main markets including those of USA , Europe and Asia.

Conclusion :

We know you’ll be torn between buying a phone from an already established manufacturer on the market (Samsung, HTC, LG, Sony, etc.), and a flagship from Oppo, despite having great specs. A track record is a powerful thing, and with Oppo, there’s no real history to go by as of yet.
But taking all the aforementioned pros into consideration, as well as the attractive price and the fact that you can unlock the bootloader and tinker with the device without voiding your warranty (check the legalese for details), the Find 7 becomes somewhat easier to recommend.
So should you buy it? As usual, the answer isn’t that easy to paint in black-and-white terms, but we’ll say this: if we had to choose one Android phone, now, to use for the remainder of the year, the OPPO FIND 7 would definitely be on our list of contenders.

SCORE :

I prefer the phone alot and would not mid owning it irrespective of its minor drawback but as or middle aged people and  brand fanatics kept in mind i score the device about
8.7 out of 10 .