Tag: Android

Today’s deal is on the compact, 4.6″ display Sony Xperia X Compact.  The 2016 phone packs a lot of punch and is down to $349 today on Amazon.  This is just about half of the cost of the new-for-2017 Xperia XZ Compact and you will still be getting Android Oreo at some point in early 2018.

I reviewed the Xperia X Compact in November of last year and it remains one of my favorite phones of the past year.  It’s compact size is great but the overall performance and camera quality is excellent.

The Xperia X Compact is powered by the Snapdragon 650 hexa-core processor.  It has four 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 cores &  two 1.8 GHz Cortex-A72 cores.  The processor is coupled with the Adreno 510 GPU which provides good graphics performance.  The X Compact has 3GB of RAM onboard and has 32GB of built-in storage.  That storage can be expanded up to an additional 256GB thanks to the Micro SD slot that is built into the SIM tray of the phone.  With the smaller screen size, as you would expect, the X Compact is a pretty small device.  It measures 129 x 65 x 9.5 mm or 5.08 x 2.56 x 0.37″ in old money.  Weight wise it is 136g or 4.76 ounces.  The phone is comfortable to hold and very easy to slip into any pocket.

Nokia has been clear that all of their current line up of devices, the Nokia 3, 5, 6 and 8, would be receiving an update to Android Oreo.  The question, as is always the case with manufactures, was when that would happen.  Now we know and it is this year.

In an interview today, HMD Global’s General Manager for ANZ (Australia and New Zealand), Mark Trundle confirmed that the Nokia 3, 5 and 6 will get getting the Oreo update before the end of the year.  As for the Nokia 8, the Android Oreo update is already in a limited rollout.

Google Assistant has grown up a lot in the past year thanks to developers and services leveraging APIs to create services for it.  While Assistant still lags behind Amazon’s Alexa when it comes to the number of services available, the gap is closing.

That presents a challenge for users who are looking for a service or feature but aren’t quite sure if it is there.  Google has addressed this and made it easy to find services for Google Assistant right from within it or the Google Home app.  Now you can simply type in a keyword to search and the Assistant will return all of the services that do that particular thing that you searched.

Without any notification or explanation, Google has extended the security update support for the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P an additional two months.  Both phones will now receive minor software patches until November 2018.

The change is reflected in an update to the Nexus Android version page on Google Support and appears to be the only changes to the schedule which the company adopted in 2016.

Paranoid Android, the AOSP-based build for a wide range of phones, has a big update rolling out that brings a lot of improvements and features. The new update is build 7.3.0 and is rolling out now.

The biggest new feature is their own camera app.  The new camera app is a simple but effective app with easy-to-understand controls (swipe left or right to go between camera and video for example) and has all the camera features you’d expect like slow motion, HDR and red eye reduction.

Last month, Google and Walmart made an announcement that shopping for the retailer would be coming to Google Express and Google Home.  That agreement has now gone live and you can find Walmart in the app as a shopping option.

Users will be able to link their Walmart online account with Google Express and shop a wide range of products from the retailer, mostly focused on groceries, and have them added to your Express shopping list.  They are then shipped to your home and if you spend over $35, the shipping is free.