Tag: Android

Earlier this week I posted about the new Samsung Galaxy S7 Active coming to AT&T today.  It is official:  AT&T has updated their website and the S7 Active is now available for purchase.  The phone is available in three colors – Sandy Gold, Green Camo and Titanium Grey – and an outright purchase of the phone will set you back $794.99.  The phone is fundamentally a Galaxy S7 that has been hardened to withstand drops and spills and packs a whopping 4000 mAh battery to keep you going all day long.  Keep in mind though that we aren’t talking about a S7 in a case.  The screen on the Active has been hardened as well to prevent it from breaking.  If you need a truly rugged phone, this is a great option for you.

Good news for those who have the Nextbit Robin.  The June software update from the startup has been released for their first phone and is rolling out to devices now.  The update contains several improvements and fixes for the Robin.  The update also includes the June Android Security update which makes the Robin one of the first devices out there to get the security update that was released on Monday.

Earlier this week I told you about a great deal on the Asus ZenFone 2 Laser over at Amazon.  In that post I mentioned that the phone was due to receive the Android Marshmallow update at some point this month.  Well, that has happened.  Asus posted in their forums yesterday that the Marshmallow update for the ZenFone 2 Laser is now rolling out to devices and should be coming to yours over the course of the next few days.  The new version is build V21.40.1220.1615 for those keeping score at home and will bring the Marshmallow 6.0 update to the device.

Good news this morning for those of you who have the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge on Verizon.  The Android Marshmallow update for the device has been released by the carrier and is starting to roll out to devices now.  The update you are looking for is build VRU2CPD1 for those keeping score at home and it comes in at just shy of 1GB in size.  That means you will have to download the update while your device is connected to Wi-Fi.  After the download, it will take about 20-30 minutes to upgrade your Note Edge to Marshmallow and will require a reboot.  As always, I recommend you have a backup of any important files on your phone prior to starting the upgrade.

After a lengthy hiatus after a lot of staff left, the all-new Paranoid Android team has returned with new AOSP-based ROMs for many popular devices.  This is the first release from the team since July of last year and the new builds are based on Android Marshmallow 6.0.1 and are available on a wide range of devices.  For those who like clean, non-bloated versions of Android, Paranoid Android is one of the best at giving you that on your device.  The team has had a heavy focus on design and the UI and the new ROMs look very clean and minimalist.

It has taken the better part of eight months but Android Marshmallow has finally broken through the 10% barrier when it comes to the install base.  The latest report was provided by Google yesterday and it shows the latest version of Android is now on 10.1% of the devices that came to the Google Play Store the 7-day period ending June 6th.  That is a jump of 2.6% over the course of the report from last month.  Given the number of updates carriers and manufactures released throughout May, the jump itself isn’t surprising but to move the needle over 2% is tough when we are talking about millions of devices out there.