Tag: Android Phone

For the past few months, the Moto Z has been exclusively tied to Verizon here in the United States.  While the CDMA version is still tied to the, you can now pick up the GSM version of the phone from Motorola directly or on Amazon.  Starting at $699 for the phone with 64GB of storage, the phone is available in Luna Grey and you can use Moto Mods with this phone to turn it into a variety of other useful things (like a projector for example).  The phone has a 5.5” AMOLED Quad HD that renders at 2560 x 1440.  That gives you an impressive 535 ppi which makes view for long periods of time easy on the eyes.

There appears to be light at the end of the nightmare tunnel for Samsung.  T-Mobile announced yesterday that they, along with Sprint and Verizon, will resume sales of the Galaxy Note7 on Wednesday, October 5th here in the United States.  The resumption of sales ends a painful few months for the Korean manufacture who had to recall millions of Note7’s globally due to faulty batteries.  The new units have a completely new battery from a complete different manufacture.

Sprint and Verizon announced last Friday that they would be resuming sales of the device in their stores and online.  T-Mobile will be doing the same and they represent the first GSM carrier here in the United States to resumes sales.

When the Nextbit Robin was released earlier this year, I purposely held off on review it.  My logic was two fold.  First, at $399 I felt for what the phone had to offer, it was over priced.  I appreciate it has some unique features and by buying it you are supporting a new American-based startup, but facts-are-facts.  The current price of $299 feels a bit more accurate.  Second, I knew that it would have issues.  And it did.  The initial build of Android running on the Robin was buggy with numerous reports of the camera being poor and slow and battery performance to match it.

Fast forward seven months and the world is a much happier place for the Nextbit Robin.  The price is down to where I think it should be frankly (and it has run as low as $199 on Amazon a couple of times which is an absolute steal) and after a couple of major updates that included a bump up to Android Marshmallow, the Robin is now a solid performing phone that has great features.  I’ve been using the device as my primary phone over the course of the last few weeks and I have no hesitation in recommending it if you are looking for a well appointed handset that is in the low cost/budget category.  In fact, for what it has to offer, you will be hard pressed to find an equally well appointed phone.  Here’s my review.

The powerful new compact phone from Sony, the Xperia X Compact, is now available on Amazon.  The unlocked phone comes in Black, Blue or White and is $499 and eligible for Prime Shipping.  The X Compact was announced last month at IFA in Berlin and the new 4.6″ Android phone turned heads there and created a lot of excitement when Sony announced it would be coming to the US.  Spec wise, while the package of the phone is small, it is power packed.  It runs on the Snapdragon 650 processor Hexa-core (4 cores 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 & 2 cores 1.8 GHz Cortex-A72).  It is mated with the Adreno 510 GPU, has 3GB of RAM and 32GB of Storage.  That storage can be expanded up to an additional 256GB thanks to the MicroSD slot.  The display is 4.6″ rendering at 720 x 1280.  That equates to 331 PPI and it is protected by Gorilla Glass 4.

A friendly reminder for those who are still thinking of picking up the great deal on the Nextbit Robin over at Amazon.  The Robin is still on sale today at Amazon for just $199, a $200 savings off the regular price.  It is available in both Mint and Midnight for that price and if you are an Amazon Prime member, you can get free shipping on it as well and get it on Saturday if you order today.

For those that don’t recall, the Nextbit Robin has some great features and offers a unique device-meets-cloud storage solution.  It has 32GB of onboard storage merged with 100 GB online storage, so you always have the space you need. Robin seamlessly backs up your apps and photos, intelligently archives the stuff you’re not using, and easily restores items when you need them.  The idea is that you never run out of space.  Those less used apps are backed up into the cloud but then are instantly available when you want them.  You’ll know an app has been backed up into the cloud as it will be grey on your Robin.

The Nextbit Robin is on sale today and tomorrow at Amazon for just $199, a screaming deal on a solid Android Phone.  Normally the phone retails for $399 (although you can pick one up from Nextbit directly for $299) but the two day sale at Amazon is by far the best deal around on the Robin.  It is available in both Mint and Midnight for that price and if you are an Amazon Prime member, you can get free shipping on it as well and get it on Saturday if you order today.

For those that don’t recall, the Nextbit Robin has some great features and offers a unique device-meets-cloud storage solution.  It has 32GB of onboard storage merged with 100 GB online storage, so you always have the space you need. Robin seamlessly backs up your apps and photos, intelligently archives the stuff you’re not using, and easily restores items when you need them.  The idea is that you never run out of space.  Those less used apps are backed up into the cloud but then are instantly available when you want them.  You’ll know an app has been backed up into the cloud as it will be grey on your Robin.