Author: Clinton

At the beginning of the month I posted on the pre-order availability of the new Honor 5X over at Amazon.  As a reminder to those who did pre-order, those will start shipping on Monday, February 1st from the online retailer.

For those who didn’t pre-order, there is still time to do so on this feature packed phone that is only $199.  The Honor 5X has a 5.5″ 1920 x 1080 Full HD display that is powered by 1.5Ghz Snapdragon 615 Octa-Core processor.  It has 2GB of RAM, 16GB of Storage and can be expanded up to 128GB thanks to a MicroSD card slot.  It has a 3000 mAh battery, a 13MP rear camera and 5MP front camera.  Here in the US it will support LTE Bands 2, 4, 5, 12 and 17 and WCDMA bands 1,2,4,5 which means that it will work on any carrier here at some level.  Be sure to refer to my guide on LTE bands for more details on carriers here in the US and their LTE bands.

Honor 5X Gold – $199 at Amazon

Honor 5X Silver – $199 at Amazon

Honor 5X Grey – $199 at Amazon

Earlier in the week, along with the Nexus 5X price drop, Google dropped the price of the Nexus 6P in Gold by $50.  That put the 32GB model at $449 while the 64GB model is at $499.  Now you can get that same pricing over at Amazon too.

The price matching at Amazon is not something new and generally after a week or two of exclusivity at Google, they match the price so their customer base can get the same price.  It’s a smart move from Amazon as their customers can use gift cards (or a combination of cards and credit cards) to pay for the device. The Google Store for now is credit card.

Nexus 6P – 32GB – $449 at Amazon

Nexus 6P – 64GB – $499 at Amazon

If you have been waiting for an invite to purchase the OnePlus X, your wait is over.  Actually, it is over for everyone.  In a post on the company’s forums, OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei announced that the mid-range phone has gone invite free for good, joining the ranks of their flagship device the OnePlus 2, and doing so in record time.

We’re extremely excited to be making the OnePlus X invite-free more quickly this time around. With every device we release, we grow more mature and more adept at handling the demands and expectations of our community. We largely owe our success to your unrelenting support, so we hope that this development will make the process of purchasing your very own OnePlus X as smooth and effortless as it can possibly be.

The news is certainly welcome and eliminates one of the biggest complaints about buying a OnePlus product.  As I put in post on why the OnePlus 2 had to be a success back in June 2015, the invite system had to be improved over the OnePlus One in 2014. It was but it was still not a great experience and that experience was mirrored with the OnePlus X.  It’s understandable to an extent.  The company is working off really thin margins and any over production of devices could have serious ramifications for the company.  But it appears they have got their hands on how to deal with demands and production which means consumers benefit from just simply being able to buy the device on demand.

While the news shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to many, Google announced that as of April 30th of this year, their exercise mapping app My Tracks will no longer be available.  The app, which allowed you to track your run, walk or biking activities and display them in Google Maps, never really caught the imagination of users and faced stiff competition for other apps that provided more detailed information on users activities.

After April 30, 2016, My Tracks will no longer be available. We apologize for the inconvenience this might cause My Tracks users. We’ve made the tough decision to invest our efforts into other, more wide-reaching, mapping projects. Below are some resources to help you manage or export your data and find other apps to continue tracking your activities.

If you are a heavy user of My Tracks, Google has provided a way to export your data and save it which is outlined in the announcement.

Yesterday afternoon I posted about the release of the latest build of Chrome OS.  This new build started rolling out to all devices yesterday and has a lot of great features and improvements in it.  The reality for me however is that I have been using the 48-build series for a couple of weeks now as part of the Chrome OS beta program.  Like any other beta program, this one allows me to download a beta version of the OS to my Chromebook and see new features as well as help the Chromium team with bugs.  It’s a bit of a win-win.

The good news is, as far as Google and the Chromium team are concerned, anyone can join the beta program.  With a simple change on your Chromebook or Chromebase, you can move from the normal Stable channel to the Beta channel so you too can get these beta builds before they hit the Stable channel.

In this How To I’ll show you how to set your Chrome OS device to the Beta channel and the process for reverting back to the Stable channel.  Before I do however, a word of warning.  They call the channel Beta for a reason folks.  You are very likely to run into bugs or other weirdness if you move to this channel.  The goal of the channel is not to give you access to new features first but for you to provide feedback to the Chromium team on bugs or issues that you run into while using the release.  Beta programs only work when those using the software actually report bugs.  So if you are willing to do so and willing to live with a bug or two, sign up.  If however you can’t make the time commitment to report bugs or your Chromebook is mission critical, don’t get in on the Beta channel.

Okay, onward to the How To.

T-Mobile has kicked off a great promotion for those who are looking to upgrade devices or add devices to an existing account or if you are opening up a new account.  The applies to select Samsung and LG phones and when you make the purchase, both devices have to be from the same manufacture.  This promo could add up to some pretty significant savings if you are needing to upgrade devices in your family.

The eligible devices are as follows:

• LG G4
• LG V10
• Samsung Galaxy S6
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
• Samsung Galaxy Note 5
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+

That’s right, these are the latest and greatest devices from LG and Samsung so you aren’t getting what’s left at the bottom of the barrel.