Category: Android

The new Huawei P10 is just now hitting retailers for purchase and it has already received its first maintenance update.  The new 5.1″ phone has a small update that brings some improvements to the camera as well as general performance improvements.  Specifically, the camera app has been updated so it does not crash when launched or when you launch the camera from Google Assistant.  It also addresses an issue with the camera preview not rendering correctly.

Along with these camera improvements, the software update fixes some stability and performance issues on the phone.

A few weeks ago, Google announced that they would be rolling out location sharing in Google Maps.  The new feature will allow you to share your location with friends and family for a set period of time and it will work across Android and iOS devices.  As a part of that effort, it appears the company is starting to shut down location sharing within Google+.

Google+ has had the ability to share your location for a long while but if you attempt to use it now, you are greeted with a splash page indicating that the feature is moving to Maps.  The tricky bit is that it hasn’t fully rolled out to Google Maps yet either.

Chrome for Android has a small update rolling out for users of the browser.  The update remains in the Chrome 57 train, with the version number updated to 57.0.2987.126.  The update is a minor one and mainly focuses on addressing a crash issue that some users were experiencing.  If you have been experiencing stability issues with the browser on your Android device, this update hopefully will address those issues for you.

In addition, the Chrome team indicated in the release notes that some improvements around CSS and performance regressions are in this update with the crash fix.

Google Sheets for Android has a small update rolling out to users that brings more advanced editing features to the mobile app.  The update will bring the ability to apply and to edit alternating row colors to your spreadsheets.  This is a feature that the web-based version of Sheets has had for some time and is just the latest feature to be added to the mobile app in Google’s effort to bring parity to the web and mobile device.  This new formatting features if found in the Formatting menu of the app.

The last several updates to Google Sheets, as well as their other productivity apps, have been focused on the parity between the desktop and mobile versions of the app.  The company continues to enable more functionality on mobile so as to limit the requirement of having laptop to get things done.  It is all in the name of productivity and meeting users where they are – likely on their mobile phone.

You read the headline right.  T-Mobile has released the Android Nougat update for the now three year old HTC One M8.  The update has passed final Q&A within the carrier and is now starting to hit customer phones.  The news is a little bit of a surprise for a couple of different reasons.  First, did I mention that the One M8 is three years old?  It was released in March 2014 and as a general rule, anything over two years doesn’t see a major update.

Second, the One M8 runs on the Snapdragon 801 processor.  While it was a solid processor at the time, Qualcomm has since stopped supporting it.  Further, because of the lack of support, many manufactures did not update devices running the 801.  Sony would be probably the most notable of those who decided not to update their older devices.

Today’s Deal is on a great phone that I reviewed a few months ago.  The Sony Xperia X Compact has a lot of punch in a little package and right now, it is on sale for $349 at Amazon.  Normally this 4.6″ phone is $499, so this is a healthy amount of savings.  It is powered by the Snapdragon 650 hexa-core processor.  It has four 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 cores &  two 1.8 GHz Cortex-A72 cores.  The processor is coupled with the Adreno 510 GPU which provides good graphics performance.  The X Compact has 3GB of RAM onboard and has 32GB of built-in storage.  That storage can be expanded up to an additional 256GB thanks to the Micro SD slot that is built into the SIM tray of the phone.

Display wise, the Xperia X Compact has a 4.6″ IPS LCD display that renders at 720 x 1280.  That gives you 319 ppi which is low compared to other devices out there.  I caution readers to consider that this device has a much smaller display so 319 ppi is actually very comfortable on this screen size.  Indeed for comparison, the iPhone 6 had 329 ppi so we aren’t talking about a massive difference from even larger devices.  The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 3.