Huawei Mate 10 Pro Pre-Orders Begin February 4th for US Buyers

Huawei has announced this afternoon that the Huawei Mate 10 Pro will be available from a wide range of retailers here in the United States starting February 18th with pre-orders starting February 4th.  The 6″ phablet will be priced at $799 and will be available in Midnight Blue, Titanium Grey and Mocha Brown.  

“We’ve experienced unprecedented growth worldwide and are now bringing our award-winning products to the U.S.,” said Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group. “Huawei is and has been in the U.S., and is part of a community of visionaries that strive to push boundaries and improve daily lives through technology. Our newest consumer solution, the HUAWEI Mate 10 Pro, is the smartphone that U.S. consumers need and deserve.”

The phones will be available from Amazon, B&H, Best Buy, Microsoft Stores and Newegg with Best Buy having the phone available in their retail locations to view and purchase.  The phone will be sold unlocked and will work with various GSM carriers here in the US like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Cricket Wireless.

The Kinda Blue Pixel 2 is Now Available Unlocked from Google

After being an exclusive to Verizon since October of last year, the Kinda Blue color option for the Google Pixel 2 is now available to everyone from Google or on Project Fi.  The pricing of the phone and the functionality of the phone is identical to any Pixel 2, it is just that you have a more unique color option than Black or White.

The Kinda Blue color was an exclusive for the phone from Verizon as being the other launch partner of the phone with Google.  That meant that the phone was locked to the carrier like the other Pixel phones they have sold.  Now with it being available from Google directly, you can get it unlocked.

Google Bringing Accessibility Improvements to Sheets, Slides and Drawings

Google has begun the process of rolling out several accessibility updates to Google Sheets, Google Slides and Google Drawings.  The updates are all for the web-based versions of these G Suite solutions and are cloud-side changes that will be rolling out to all accounts over the course of the next couple of weeks.

First, Braille support has been added to Google Sheets.  Joining support that is already in Docs and Slides, within Sheets you will be able to use a Braille display to read and edit cell content as well as navigate between cells on a sheet.  Initially support for this will only be available on Chrome OS with the ChromeBox screen reader.  Google indicated in the release notes that they are working on support for other platforms and readers.

Razer Phone Set to be First Phone to Deliver Netflix in HDR and Dolby Digital Plus 5.1

If there is any doubt that Razer has intended their first smartphone, the Razer Phone, to be a premium gaming and entertainment experience for their customers, you can put them to rest.  Today’s announcement around Netflix will end all doubt of the company’s intention.

Today at CES, the company announced that the Razer Phone will be the first smartphone to deliver Netflix content in both HDR video as well as Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 audio.

“We engineered the Razer Phone to handle HDR video and sound like no other phone on the market,” says Min-Liang Tan, Razer co-founder and CEO. “We are incredibly excited to deliver Netflix entertainment on a smartphone like never before, enabling us to take full measure of the Razer Phone’s HDR10-enabled display and dual-firing, front-facing Dolby-optimized speakers and THX-certified headphone connectivity.”

The phone joins several other devices in the market that already provide Netflix in HDR video including the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Google Pixel 2 series.  But Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 audio is a different and more difficult matter.

Google Drive Gains Folder Specific Searching Feature

Google is in the process of rolling out a new folder specific search function for Google Drive online.  The new feature will allow you to right-click a folder stored on your Drive and search only within that folder, not your entire cloud storage.

The idea of course it give you quicker search results if you have a lot of content stored in Google Drive or on Team Drives if you are a G Suite domain utilizing that feature.  It is a feature that has been sorely missed by many, especially customers who are utilizing Team Drives in their organization.

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