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Today’s Deal is on the powerful and very popular Amazon Echo.  Today you can pick up the Amazon Alexa powered personal assistant device for $149.99.  That is a savings of $30 off the regular price.  The Echo has thousands of services that you can link to it in order to get news, information and, of course, order things from Amazon.  The Echo is a truly immersive experience for those that leverage Amazon Prime and the associated services like Amazon Music.

Echo is also aimed to give you personalized information such as commute time to work, leverage smart devices in your house like smart lights and garage door openers, get recipes for things to cook or drink.

After a horrendously long wait, the unlocked variant of the Samsung Galaxy S7 appears to be having its official Android Nougat update rolling out.  Android Authority is reporting that multiple users of Reddit have reported getting an OTA update to the Galaxy S7 with the Nougat update.  Samsung, to this point, has not confirmed if this is indeed the case.  The update comes a week after the update to the unlocked Galaxy S7 Edge received its update to Nougat and months after the carrier locked versions of the update hit devices.  Why the update to the unlocked variants too so long is unclear.

It is indicated that the update weighs in at just over 1Gb in size so you will want to make sure you download it over Wi-Fi.  The update will take about 10 minutes to install once you have it downloaded and will require a reboot.  Once you are back up and running, you will be running on Nougat.  If you need a rundown of what’s new in Nougat, check out my overview.

If you have a Huawei P10 in your phone arsenal, it’s time to go check for an update.  The Chinese manufacture has begun rolling out a new update that brings a host of improvements as well as an updated security patch.  The update is version VTR-L09C432B123 (if you have the dual-SIM model, it will be VTR-L29C432B123) for those keeping score and is 467MB in size.  You will want to make sure you are connected to Wi-Fi before downloading it and once you do have it, expect about a 5 minute install time.  If you are curious about the Huawei P10, you can read my review and even though I have a Pixel XL, I still find myself using this phone more than any other phone.

The camera performance for the P10 has been improved with this update as Huawei has optimized the software running it.  The overall system stability has also been improved although frankly, I’ve never had a stability issue with this device in the previous build.  Huawei has also optimized the touchscreen sensitivity which is noticeable if you use the P10 as your daily phone.  It is more accurate and responsive now.

The Microsoft Arrow Launcher is one of the most useful launchers in the Google Play Store right now, particularly if you are a heavy Microsoft apps user.  I’ve reviewed this launcher in the past and Microsoft continues to make big strides in improving it on a seemingly monthly basis.  One of the features that came with the last major update was the ability to add widgets to the Utility page in the launcher.

For clarity, the Utility page is a single page that you swipe right to get to from the Home page.  There you can see your recent contacts, your calendar, documents and so forth.  All of this content is tied to your phone or to your Office 365 (personal or business) account to get you these files and information at a glance.  You can turn this page off in the settings but once you get it configured the way you want, it is actually quite handy.  Think of it, in a way, as the Microsoft version of the Google Now page.

If you are using the latest version of Arrow Launcher, you can add other app widgets to the Utility page.  This will free up space on your Home pages but also give you the ability to at glance see a bunch of widgets in one place.  It is quite handy.