When making a budget phone, especially one that you plan to make money on, you have to make compromises. That’s really all there is to it. Which means you, as a manufacturer, are left with two choices:

You can either build a phone with all the features you can imagine — like NFC, wireless charging, quick charging, a microSD card slot, and USB 3.0 — and buy all of those components, and everything else in the phone from the display, to the camera, to the speakers, CPU and RAM at the lowest price possible. Skimping on the display, buying cheaper camera sensors, throwing in a slight smaller, battery; you get the point.

Or you can leave out all of those features and place that money into splurging on the components you do need, like having a killer display, an awesome camera, a top of the line CPU and GPU, and more than enough RAM to handle anything you could possibly want to do.

With the OnePlus 2, OnePlus opted for the second option. Instead of offering a device with a subpar camera with a cheap display, they went with USB 2 instead of 3, left out quick charging, and used a high-quality 1080p display and a 13-megapixel camera with OIS and laser autofocus. Instead of going with a last-gen Snapdragon and 2GB of RAM, they went with the latest and greatest Qualcomm has to offer paired with 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM, and left out wireless charging and NFC.

OnePlus made the call and decided to prioritize certain features over others, and I believe the things they chose to prioritize make more of a difference to the experience of using and enjoying your phone. The OnePlus 2 is beautiful, fast, has a huge battery, and will take great pictures, all for only $329. But you have to plug it in to charge it and doing anything involving NFC simply isn’t an option.

Again, I think they made the right compromises, especially since those choices extend further than internal specs. That includes the build quality, which has been universally praised, the fingerprint reader, customizable capacitive buttons and custom notification switch.

For years now, as long as I can remember blogging about Android (which is more than 6 years now), people have said things like “why not cut something that doesn’t matter quite as much and throw in a better camera and display?” Well, OnePlus finally has.

At this point, we just have to see if people vote with their wallets and agree with me, or if Qi and NFC are really worth a bad camera or $300. What do you think?

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The Moto X Style, or Pure Edition as it will be known in the U.S., is the flagship in Motorola’s new lineup and it seems the only Moto X variant that will be available in the U.S. Let’s take a quick look at the specs on this thing, remembering that it starts at just $399.

• 5.7-inch QHD display
• 1.8GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor with Adreno 418 GPU
• 3GB RAM
• 16/32/64GB ROM with microSD expansion up to 128GB
• 21MP rear camera f/2.0
• 5MP front camera f/2.0
• 3000 mAh battery with Turbo Charging
• Bluetooth 4.1 LE
• NFC
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac + MIMO
• Android 5.1.1

That’s an impressive array of specs for that price point, Motorola is even challenging the value proposition of the newly announced One Plus 2. But moving on from the straight tech specs let’s take a closer look at some of the major features of the Moto X Pure Edition.

Camera

This is one area that will see a fair amount of scrutiny from me, as I have put up with a lot of disappointment with Motorola camera performance over the years, but now we have seen two absolutely amazing cameras on Android smartphones in the Galaxy S6 and the LG G4 and my expectations have been set significantly higher.

Now no one should expect the Moto X Pure Edition to be the equal of either of those devices in imaging, the hardware just isn’t there for it, but I would hope that Motorola put a lot of effort into optimizing what they have. The phase detect autofocus is one new feature that encourages me as it should help ensure that shots are consistently in focus, something that has been an issue for them in the past and naturally regardless of the rest of the qualities of the photo if the subject isn’t in focus it is pretty much useless to you. The color balancing flash is also an interesting new addition and another that gives me hope that while Motorola can’t afford to throw in world beating hardware that perhaps they’ve figured out how to deliver solid performance with what they’ve got.

Video capture has been improved as well with 1080p at 60 fps and Video HDR available in both 1080p and 4K for improved dynamic range.

Battery

The battery life of the previous Moto X was another area that came under fire and Motorola has bumped up from a 2300 mAh to a 3000 mAh battery this year, but taking into account that they have also moved to a 5.7-inch QHD display we’ll have to see how that all balances out. On the positive side Motorola has indicated that the Turbo Charging capabilities of the Moto X Pure Edition are unsurpassed and can add up to 10 hours of battery life with just 15 minutes of charging.

Connectivity

Motorola has streamlined things here with a single model that will work on all U.S. carriers. At the same time they apparently have no plans to release the phones through carriers and will instead be selling direct through its own website, through Best Buy and finally Amazon. We’ve seen plenty try and fail at this gambit in the past, so time will tell if Motorola has what it takes to make this work.

As for the rest of the connectivity you have all the usual suspects represented including NFC, which the other budget flagship challenger the OnePlus 2 has decided to drop this year.

Speakers

Front facing speakers. Seriously that’s it, but everyone should be doing it.

Conclusion

The Moto X Style (Pure Edition) isn’t going to overwhelm the other flagships with its specs, but as a value proposition it is going to be tough to beat. Motorola is trying to sell the Moto X line as more of a two way relationship than other smartphones and to some degree that is certainly true. Thanks to Moto Maker customization and Motorola’s contextual awareness tweaks the devices can feel more like an extension of you. Whether that can sell against the truly high end flagships being pushed by the carriers or not will be an interesting story to watch once the Moto X Pure Edition hits in September.

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During a simulcast event split between New York, London, and Sao Paulo, Motorola announced three new phones — the Moto X Style, Moto X Play and Moto G (2016). The three new phones match up really well with all the leaks which have flooded the web over the past few months or so, delivering three unique devices which offer impressive specs and even better value. All three phones will run Motorola’s Pure Android software experience which doesn’t deviate much from stock Android. While Samsung, LG, and HTC have added highly customized layers on top of Android, Motorola promises to enhance the user experience by offering real functionality improvements with Moto Assist, Moto Display and Moto Actions which make the phones aware of their surroundings and more intuitive to interact with — even when the phone it sitting on a table across the room.

While Moto Maker has been limited to the Moto X in the past, all three of Motorola’s new phones will be given the Moto Maker treatment this time around, offering dozens of color and material choices to users in select markets (now including Brazil).

Moto X Style

As the flagship in Motorola’s new lineup, the new Moto X Style is quite impressive. The phone features a 5.7-inch QHD display with a 76% screen-to-body ratio, front-facing stereo speakers, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, 3GB of RAM, 16/32/64GB storage options, 21 megapixel rear camera, 5 megapixel front-facing camera, and a 3,000 mAh battery with Turbo Power (Motorola claims that it is the world’s fastest charging phone) which allows the phone to charge 50% faster than other quick charge enabled devices.

Available in September, the Moto X Style will sell for $200-300 less than other flagship smartphones. In the US, the phone will be sold unlocked and free of carrier bloat as the Moto X Pure Edition for $399 and will be compatible will all four major service providers.

Moto X Play

The Moto X Play will most likely be known as Motorola’s cheap flagship. It doesn’t feature all the bells and whistles that Motorola has thrown at the Moto X Style, but it’s quite an attractive offering when you consider that it will sell for half the price of most flagship phones. Specs on the Moto X Play include a 5.5-inch 1080p display, Snapdragon 615 processor, 2GB of RAM, 16 or 32 GB of internal storage, microSD card slot (up to 128GB), the same 21 megapixel rear and 5 megapixel front camera found on the Moto X Style and a massive 3,630 mAh battery which could actually last two days on a single charge.

Motorola is planning on rolling out the Moto X Play to 55 countries starting in August.

Moto G 2016

While most of us would rather buy the Moto X Style or the Moto X Play, the new Moto G (2016) will most likely be the best selling smartphone in Motorola’s new lineup. Motorola acknowledged that the Moto G has sold more than any of its other smartphones in recent years. Selling for $179.99, the Moto G comes packed with a 5-inch 720p display, 13 megapixel camera with F/2.0 lens (same sensor used on the Nexus 6), IR filter to reduce glare, 5 megapixel front-facing camera, Qualcomm Snapdragon 410, 8GB or 16GB of internal storage, microSD card slot, 1GB or 2GB of RAM, LTE and a fairly generous 2,470 mAh battery.

To make the new Moto G even more appealing than previous models, it now features IPX7 protection which allows the phone to be submerged in 1 meter of water for up to 30 minutes. The Moto G is available in select markets starting today and will eventually make its way to over 60 countries across the globe.

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As you may have heard, the OnePlus 2 was announced late last night, featuring an impressive array of specs, a USB Type-C charging and data connector and a very attractive $329 sticker price. Our very own Marco Hanna attended the event and was able to record an unboxing and first impressions video of the OnePlus 2. Check out the video below to see what Marco thinks of OnePlus’ new “flagship killer.”

What’s your take on the new OnePlus 2? Do you think it lives up to the company’s #neversettle tagline?

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Tonight, OnePlus revealed just about everything you could want to know about it’s “2016 flagship killer,” the OnePlus 2, except maybe the one thing that will make or break the device: How much it will cost. Well, one hour after the initial VR announcement of the device, OnePlus has made the price of the OnePlus 2 official, and it’s better than we thought.

While flagship devices like the Galaxy S6, One M9 and iPhone 6 cost between $600 and $850, the OnePlus 2 will launch at $329 for 16Gb of storage, or $389 for 64GB. Not bad at all. As covered in our initial announcement post, the release date for the OnePlus 2 in the US, Canada, India, China and EU is August 11. Let us know if you’ll be buying a OnePlus 2 in the comments below.

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One of the year’s most anticipated Android devices, the OnePlus 2, is official. And it’s launching August 11 in the US, Canada, India, EU, China and other select markets.

While the OnePlus One wasn’t without its fair share of problems, there’s no denying the device set the bar for what an independent company could provide in a handset. The OnePlus Two will carry that torch forward, with impressive specs and what is being teased as a conservative price — we don’t actually know how much yet. Hardware wise, the OnePlus 2 comes with:

• Snapdragon 810 w/dedicated front and rear camera image signal processing
• Adreno 430 GPU
• 5.5-inch in-cell, 1080p display
• 13-megapixel OIS, laser-focus camera
• 4GB DDR4 RAM
• 64GB storage
• Fingerprint scanner
• USB Type-C
• 3300mAh battery

On top of improved specs over the OnePlus One, the OnePlus 2 comes with plenty of design improvements as well, sporting metal and customizable buttons, and a sleek magnesium bezel that’s met by a removable and customizable battery door on the rear. It also comes with an alert slider that can be set to all notifications, priority only or silent. You’ll notice that the OnePlus 2 uses a 1080p display. The display is indeed different than the display on the OnePlus One, and was chosen to preserve battery life.

Software wise, the OnePlus 2 runs OxygenOS based on the latest version of Android with a handful of enhancements to support things like the OnePlus 2′s 13-megapixel camera and fingerprint reader.

Going up against handsets like the Galaxy Note 5, the next Nexus and the 2015 Moto X won’t be easy, but it looks like OnePlus is in it to win it. You can buy the OnePlus 2 on August 11 in the US, Canada, India, China and European Union, if you have an invite. We’ll be sharing more details on that once they’re made available.

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Hot on the heels of more Galaxy Note 5 photos leaking, we now know the date on which Samsung’s next phablet will be officially shown off.

Samsung’s next Unpacked 2015 event will go down at 11:00 am ET on August 13. The company teased its shindig with the image you see above, showing black lines against a white background. But wait…There appears to be something in the middle of those lines that has two sloping sides. Something shaped like a phone with a dual curved edge display.

While Samsung’s not saying what it plans to show at the event, it’s likely that we’ll see the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ there. Both phones have been leaking like crazy lately, and reports have suggested that Samsung wanted to move the Note 5 up from its traditional early September launch to give it more time in the spotlight before Apple announces its new iPhone.

So now we’ve got a little more than two weeks to go before two major new Android phones are released. The wait could be difficult, but if the rumor mill is anything like it’s been lately, we’ll see some more leaks to help pass the time until August 13 rolls around.

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With the wealth of video content online these days, it has become increasingly difficult to find the time to consume it all. You could spend hours watching videos across social media sites and in mobile apps and still only scratch the surface of the day’s popular video offerings before tomorrow rolls around and brings with it a fresh wave of interesting clips.

Minute is a video discovery app that wants to make this video viewing experience simpler and more efficient. And it aims to do so by synthesizing the best of viral video and by bringing you a personalized daily digest of the web’s video content based on your likes and dislikes.

When you first open the free Minute app, you’ll be greeted with a couple of splash screens explaining the purpose of the app — “All the best videos, just shorter” — before jumping straight into the content. There’s no need to create an account, you can simply begin watching videos straight away.

Using crowd-sourced data and some algorithmic smarts, Minute presents users with sections of 6-10 videos to peruse. At the top page, you’ll see a section labeled ‘Your Daily News’ containing a collection of the day’s important, interesting, popular and noteworthy videos from a variety of publishers and on a broad spectrum of topics. Below it, lie curated sections dubbed ‘Entertain Me!’, ‘World of Sport’, ‘Geeks Only’, and ‘Funny as Hell’ to name a few. These can feature anything from movie trailers to wildlife to extreme sports and more.

Minute isn’t simply curating video playlists, though. When you enter into one of the sections, the videos within are presented in a card-like interface and are shortened to just the 15-25 seconds determined to be the most relevant and interesting part. Using various metrics, Minute’s data analysis algorithm is capable of identifying the best snippet of a video to present to you allowing you to breeze through a selection of videos in a fraction of the time it would take you in order to watch them all fully or skipping around to find that important moment. If a video strikes you as particularly interesting, you have the option to watch it in full at the tap of a button or bookmark it for viewing later.

The algorithm is excellent for shortening the viewing experience, allowing you to get a gist of more content in less time, and quickly decide if a clip is for you or not. Generally, it did find the best part of a video, cutting out a lot of the filler, but a couple of times I found the provided snippet to be just slightly off the mark. When watching highlights from this month’s CONCACAF Gold Cup, for example, the clips occasionally cut off footage of goals awkwardly. While I understand 25 seconds is restrictive, and the option to watch the full video is there, the experience was jarring when it happened (however infrequently it was).

Minute also learns from the videos you like (and dislike). That card-like interface, akin to Tinder in many ways, also operates a bit like the dating app in terms of its functionality — swipe right to like and left to register your dislike. Future video recommendations are tailored to your tastes and over time I found that my feed began to reflect my interests more and more.

As well as being great for some light entertainment, I actually found Minute to be a really useful way to quickly catch up on the day’s news. The ‘Your Daily News’ section was always up to date and most days has brought me a good cross-section of news I am interested in. The same can’t always be said for the other curated sections which sometimes managed to surface videos that were over a year old.

The overall user experience of Minute is superb. The app is fluid, easy to pick up and very polished. Being video-heavy by nature, the video loading speed can determine how great your experience feels but on a fast Wi-Fi or LTE connection you shouldn’t run into any problems. One small qualm I had with the app was when sharing a link to a video or playlist which requires the recipient to then open the video in Minute’s web view (from which it is difficult to open the video at its original source). Not a deal breaker by any means, but worth noting.

Minute is a unique, fun and easy to use way to consume video. While there are some areas for improvement, for the most part Minute achieves its aim of streamlining the video watching experience and allows you to indulge in multiple video highlights from different topics without spending hours trawling the web and social media. The app is well put together and the experience is of a high quality.

Check out Minute on Google Play where it is available to download for free.

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It looks like Google and all Android manufacturers have a very serious issue on their hands. A new security flaw was discovered in Stagefright, the media playback tool that Android uses, that allows an MMS message to seriously compromise your device. And worst of all, it affects almost all Android devices since Android 2.2.

The way it works is an attacker only needs to know your phone number. They send you an infected MMS message, which often doesn’t need to be opened to be activated. Many SMS apps auto-retrieve MMS messages for quick viewing, meaning you’ll be infected in the background. This allows access to photos stored on SD cards, Bluetooth, and even activating recording of audio and video.

Google is aware of the bugs and the guys who found the exploits have submitted patches that Google will be pushing out. Nexus devices will likely be getting the fixes first, though it’s known that the Nexus 6 isn’t even safe at the moment. When it comes to other devices… good luck. An update might not be available for a while.

I don’t know if it’ll help, but set auto-retrieve MMS to off in your messaging app of choice, and don’t open MMS messages from strange numbers. Stay safe and hope the next update fixes what may be the worst Android security flaw ever found.

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The further Android comes, the more it seems Google focuses on security. Luckily, this hasn’t much affected those who modify their devices, and this will be no different. Google has posted a new support page related to an upcoming verified boot system, which provides warnings about security when booting.

There are currently three warnings that Google has shown us. The yellow warning means that the device software has been changed, the orange warning means that the bootloader is unlocked and can’t check the software, and the red means something has been seriously modified. These warnings will pop up either due to intentional or unintentional changes, but custom ROMs are guaranteed to set them off.

If you’ve purposefully modified your software, don’t worry about the warnings. They disappear after 10 seconds, and hitting the power button dismisses them immediately. This verified boot system will likely be added to Android M, which is coming out soon.

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