Category: Android

The beta version of the Google app for Android has a new update rolling out that brings a handy screenshot editing feature – but it only works within the Google app itself.  The new feature has arrived in version 7.21 for those keeping score at home and, given it is in beta, it will likely hit the stable channel for everyone over the course of the next couple of weeks.

The new screenshot editor allows you to take a screenshot of something in your Google app feed, search results, or pages viewed within Chrome custom tabs in the app.  Once you snap the screenshot, by pressing the Power+Volume Down button on virtually all Android phones, you will get a lower notification for you to edit or share the screenshot.

Today’s Deal is on the Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact, the company’s 4.6″ Android phone that was launched in September of last year.  The XZ1 Compact is the follow up to the popular Xperia X Compact from 2016 and has some mighty impressive specs for its small size.  Right now on Amazon you can pick up the phone in any color for $449, a savings of $150 off the normal price.

The  Xperia XZ1 Compact has a 4.6″ full HD display (1920 x 1080) and is powered by the Snapdragon 835 SoC and coupled with the Adreno 540 GPU.  It has 4GB of RAM and has 32GB of storage.  That storage can be expanded up to an additional 256GB thanks to the MicroSD slot.

The latest update to the Microsoft OneDrive app for Android is rolling out and bringing much greater support for Oreo’s Notification Channels.  The new build is version 5.3 for those keeping score at home and should get to everyone who has the cloud storage app installed at some point this week.

Notification Channel support in OneDrive actually came to the app in December of last year but it was pretty limited in scope.  Microsoft, in this version, has fully fleshed it out by adding notifications for when your storage is nearly full, when people edit your files that you have shared with them, and when OneDrive creates a photo album for you to name a few.

Today’s Deal is a great one for those of you looking to pick up a powerful external battery.  The Poweradd Pilot X7 20000mAh Power Bank is down to $16.49 today only over at Amazon.  Normally this dual USB port pack is $49.99 so this is a solid deal. 

The Poweradd Pilot X7 is powerful enough to charge a Samsung Galaxy S8 up to four times while it can charge an iPhone X about 4.5 times.  For those of you who have an iPhone 7 or 8, you can get 8, count ’em, 8 charges out of the pack before it needs to be recharged.  

Project Fi, Google’s MVNO mobile service, has added several new countries where their low cost international usage is provided.  The list is now over 170 countries strong with the latest addition of 73 countries announced today.  In these countries, Fi users will have the same costs as they do at home, which is $10 per GB of usage.  Text messaging is unlimited as part of the package and voice calls are a low .20 Cents per minute.

Some of the new countries that Project Fi users can travel to and get coverage include:

• Algeria
• Armenia
• Bangledesh
• Laos
• Madagascar
• Mongolia
• Niger
• Oman
• Uganda

You can see the complete list of countries in the announcement made by Fi today.

A second Chrome 65 based build of Chrome for Android has been released to beta testers in the Play Store.  The new build is 65.0.3325.74 for those keeping score at home.  This new build comes just over a week after the first Chrome 65 beta was released for Android.

Generally Chrome 65 across all platforms is an evolutionary update with focused efforts on code clean up, stopping rogue code execution and general performance improvements.   As for Chrome for Android, this update does contain some improvements around syncing of content.  For those who want to deep dive into the code changes, here is a partial log of what’s changed.