Samsung’s smaller and cheaper tablets are also discounted, but be sure to take a look at each tablet’s specs before buying it. The Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8-Inch Tablet is a reasonable buy at $179.99, but the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 at $119 should likely only be considered if you’re looking for a tablet that will be used as an e-reader or for basic web surfing.
Looking for a great Bluetooth Speaker for your house with a built-in personal assistant? The Amazon Echo is on sale for $149, $31 sell than what Amazon typically charges for it.
In addition to connecting to your phone to music playback, the Echo uses Amazon’s Alexa cloud personal assistant service to help you create shopping lists, answer basic questions, read the news to you and even tap into your home automation system and control different parts if your house. Yes, Google Now on your smartphone can do a lot of those same things, but everyone we’ve talked to who owns the Amazon Echo simply raves out how awesome it is. The Amazon Echo is on sale through December 1st, but we’re not sure if Amazon will be able keep it in stock with the reduced $149 price point.
Getting a new gadget for a loved one (or yourself) is always exciting. But we’re here to tell you that buying a new charger for an old device can dramatically change the way you use the devices you already have. Let’s face it, phones and tablets are only useful to us when the batteries are charged. The charger you get with the device does a good job of charging your phone overnight, but it’s unbearably slow. Fortunately, there are a lot of charging solutions which can charge your phone much faster and others which will allow you to ditch that unsightly USB cord.
Quick Charge basics
If you simply need the best of the best, we recommend you always use Quick Charge certified chargers. With Qualcomm’s Quick Charge technology, your smartphone will charge your phone 2 to 3 times faster than standard USB chargers and don’t really cost that much more. The new Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 standard was only announced a few months ago and can give compatible devices roughly a 50% charge in about 20 minutes. Quick Charge 3.0 is backwards compatible, so it will also work with Quick Charge 2.0 phones. Most smartphones announced in 2016 with Qualcomm chips will have Quick Charge 3.0 capabilities. That being said, there are only a handful of Quick Charge 3.0 chargers on the market right now, so you have a lot more options at better prices if you opt for a Quick Charge 2.0 charger.
Qi wireless charging basics
If you own a phone with built-inch wireless charging, we highly recommend picking up a Qi wireless charger for your desk or car. Wireless charging standards are still slower than Qualcomm’s Quick Charge standards but we find it extremely convenience to just drop your phone on a charging pad rather than having to find that charging cable which inevitably always seems to fall behind the desk or night stand. Don’t forget, you can add Qi wireless charging to almost any phone for about $10. It’s not the fastest charging solution (especially when compared to Quick Charge 2.0), but it is extremely convenience if all you want to do if throw your phone down on your desk to charge it without the hassle of finding your charging cable every time.
The most overlooked charging scenario is when we are in a car. Fortunately, there are Quick Charge and Qi wireless charging solutions which will work for almost any car. If you already have a car charger but rarely use it, swapping it out with a Qi wireless charger might be exactly what you need. That being said, plugging your phone into a Quick Charge 2.0 car charger for 10-15 minutes can give you enough power to get you through half a day. The choice is yours.
Like the Mate7 before it, the Mate 8 boasts a 6-inch 1920×1080 display. Running on that display, you’ll find Android 6.0 beneath Huawei’s custom EMUI 4.0 user interface. The front of the Mate 8 is also home to an 8-megapixel camera, and around back is a 16-megapixel camera with a Sony IMX298 sensor with optical image stabilization and an f/2.0 aperture. Resting beneath that rear camera is a fingerprint reader.
Inside of its aluminum body lives an octa-core Kirin 950 processor that’s made with a 16nm FinFET+ process. Also included with the 950’s chipset is what Huawei calls an intelligent i5 processor that supports speech recognition, low-power consumption MP3, and a reduction in the power consumption of location-based services.
Also inside the Mate 8’s aluminum body is 3/4GB of RAM, 32/64/128GB of storage, a microSD slot, and a 4000mAh battery. The Mate 8 will be sold in Champagne Gold, Moonlight Silver, Space Gray, and Mocha Brown color options. It’s going to launch in China in Q1 2016 at a starting price of 3199 Chinese Yuan, or around $500 USD. There will be beefier versions of the phone available that include up to 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, with the maxed out Mate 8 setting buyers back around $690 USD.
The Mate 8 has a nice design, and I have to say, I’m digging the Mocha Brown. Can we get more brown phones, please? As for its specs, the Mate 8 appears to have most of the features that you’d expect from a flagship Android phone in 2015. Whether or not all of that translates into a quality device remains to be seen, but with a launch coming in Q1 2016, it shouldn’t be too long before we find out.
Welcome back to Android Gaming Weekly, our weekly recap of new game releases. We still plan to cover upcoming releases and games we’re playing, but this column is dedicated to new games that you can start playing right now. Check out our top picks and let us know in the comments section if you have any suggestions for next week’s post.
Call of Champions
Description: Call of Champions is the most intense real-time multiplayer battle arena (MOBA) on the phone and tablet. Choose a Champion, recruit a team, smash the enemy, and compete against millions worldwide!
Description: Core Archery introduces an intuitive single touch gesture to simulate the drawing, aiming and anchoring of the drawing arm. It appears as easy and simple at first, but the depth is revealed as you progress to longer distances.
Description: Beneath your castle an enemy lies waiting. Grab your shovel and prepare your defenses! Dig deep into the ground and find valuable treasures and ancient relics to help you on your mission.
Description: Build powerful light and dark side teams with both Jedi and Sith heroes and other characters from the Star Wars universe. Make strategic choices and pick characters with complimentary abilities to construct squads and engage in RPG combat like never before!
Description: You wake up alone and freezing in an icy cell. You try the cell door but it’s locked, it seems that you are stuck with no apparent escape. All that surrounds you is a letter and a bottle of pills, and no sign of how long you have been here or why!
Description:Board Defenders is super-structuring the rules of the world’s most popular game of all times. A modern vision, addictive, thrilling and fun fast action game, combining the pace of an arcade with the challenge of a logic puzzle – brain game, based on chess rules.
Description: Take your state of the art jet fighter into the big blue and bring an alien invasion to its knees in this next-generation top down air combat shooter! Loop, dive and barrel role between allies and aliens alike. Dodge and weave between obstacles and enemy fire in high speed low altitude chases!
Description: It’s the year 4000-something. You are a rookie spaceship designer wanting to prove yourself to the world. Enter Starside Arena, an entertainment arena of the future, where only the best of the best rule! Competitive Multiplayer Game featuring layers of deep strategy and endlessly evolving game content!
Description: Are you a color master? Color virtuoso? Are colors the reason you get up in the morning? If so then you’ll love Blendoku, the palettes and layouts are all hand designed and crafted to test your color skills.
With Black Friday and Cyber Monday approaching, many of you were probably wondering if Google Play would be offering discounts like it has in the past. The answer is: Yes, yes it will.
The Google Play Cyber Weekend sale is underway, offering deals on apps, games, movies, TV shows, and more. There are some solid discounts to take advantage of on games like Pac-Man CE DX, Leo’s Fortune, and Final Fantasy, and discounts on apps and subscriptions like Ultimate Guitar Tabs & Chords and VSCO.
Moving over to media, you can snag discounts on music from Fetty Wap, Muse, Notorious B.I.G., and Fleetwood Mac, movies like John Wick and Mad Max: Fury Road, and TV shows like Game of Thrones and Adventure Time. There are also sales on books and magazines.
Overall this looks like a pretty solid Cyber Weekend sale. There are all kinds of deals to be had, including some pretty big titles, so most everyone ought to be able to find an offer or two that they want to take advantage of. To check out all of the goods that are on sale, hit up the link below.
The HTC Preview program is officially expanding to the US and HTC is looking for brave souls who are willing to lend a helping hand. HTC Preview participants are often given pre-release software updates and may also be sent pre-release devices for field testing to ensure that all bugs are worked out before the product is made available to the general public. While getting software updates or new devices before everyone else may sound like a lot of fun, HTC is only looking for serious participants to help them with the program. You also have to be willing to let HTC into your life like never before. The pre-release software updates that you test will contain software that logs network/signal strength, battery information, usage times and the apps that you use. That being said, HTC won’t be keeping track of your personal data like passwords, account information, text messages, MMS, emails or call logs (unless authorized by you).
HTC’s team that’s heading up the HTC Preview program in the US just finished up an AMA on Reddit, answering quite a few questions from the community. If you’re at all interested in joining HTC Preview, you can sign up here. We also suggest you read through the AMA since it contains quite a few details on what you can expect if you are selected to be a part of the program. HTC isn’t saying how many people it’s hoping to recruit, but you do need to have service on Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint or AT&T just to be considered.
Do you think the feedback HTC will get through this program will help solve some of the issues that the company’s been facing these past few years?
TYLT is easily one of the most talked about charging accessory manufacturers due to their innovative designs and high quality products. However, if you’ve read any of our reviews, our most common and only real complaint is the price. There are much cheaper charging accessories out there, but they may be made with questionable quality.
Well, once again TYLT is blessing us with a great Black Friday weekend sale. They’ve been doing it since I’ve been following TYLT products, and it’s how I picked up my first pair of TYLT VU wireless chargers. It was a great decision then and the TYLT VUs are still my favorite wireless chargers. They’re so well-designed and convenient to use.
So here’s the deal: Between 11/27 and 11/30, TYLT will be offering 35% off its entire wireless charging line and 50% off all other products. This means my personal favorite VU Wireless Charger is just $39, the Energi Sliding Power Case I just reviewed and really liked is just $35, and a 1-meter FLYP-DUO — which would fit well in a stocking — is down to $15. On top of that, TYLT is also offering free shipping on all U.S. orders. All discounts will be applied automatically upon checking out, so there’s on coupon code necessary.
We have reviewed multiple different TYLT products here on Android and Me. Below are a list of reviews that we’ve done, in case you’re interested in learning about our experience with the devices before you buy:
In the past, TYLT’s Black Friday weekend sale was so popular it broke their website, but TYLT was great and still honored their deals beyond the weekend for those that weren’t able to get in during the deal. My advice is to definitely take advantage of these deals and to do it early. These deals from TYLT basically come around only once a year. I’m a huge fan of these products and you will be too.
Let us know if you have any questions about any of these products by commenting below. Also, let us know if you own any TYLT products and what you think about them or what you’re going to buy this weekend. Happy Thanksgiving!
New apps need lovin’ too, right? Every day there are thousands of additions to the Google Play store, but many go unnoticed and never receive the attention they deserve. We’ve shown in the past that this community can discover great apps and propel them to new heights. Our weekly Fresh Meat column highlights new apps with fewer than 100,000 installs. Browse our new Android app picks below and let us know which ones you enjoy.
Work Chat
Description:Work Chat is the messaging app for Facebook at Work. Right now Facebook at Work and Work Chat are only available to some companies, and you need a work account to use them
Description: With PlayTime Internet Radio, you can search for specific songs and talk shows currently playing in over 50,000 live internet radio stations worldwide using our powerful online radio search engine!
Description: The personalization system learns your preferences as you use it, so you never have to repeat yourself. Search for your favorite electronics, and it’ll automatically know the price range, favorite brands, and item condition you have in mind.
Description: Imagine for a moment that you deal with the never ending problem that people with autism and their families face – where’s a good place to go which is safe and won’t over stimulate me or my autistic loved one. Just have a look at the Autism Village app and you’ll quickly find nearby places rated and reviewed by others like yourself.
Description: Are you considering changing your Android device to Windows Phone? AppComparison identifies your favourite Android apps and matches them with apps available from the Windows Store.
Description: AppBlock – Stay Focused is a free android application that helps you (its users) to block temporarily distracting programs on his mobile like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and addictive apps like Talking Tom or Angela, etc. so that you can stay focused in your work.
Description: Snap is a widget drawer, similar to the notifications drawer. Give a boost to your productivity and access widgets from any app without having to go to your launcher. Keep your home screen clean.
At the tail end of October, Fossil officially introduced the Q Founder smartwatch, which runs an Intel chip under its hood and boasts Google’s Android Wear platform. At the time, Fossil wasn’t prepared to announce an official launch date, with expectations that the new smartwatch with Fossil’s classic timepiece design would arrive in time for the holiday shopping season.
Turns out that’s indeed the case, as Fossil has officially listed the Q Founder on its website for immediate availability. Pricing for the Q Founder is set at $295.00 (a bit higher than the expected $275), with plenty of different shipping methods to choose from, including an overnight option for an additional $19.95 that can put the watch on your doorstep in 1 to 2 business days.
As far as specs go, it features a case size of 46mm, with 4GB of built-in storage, the aforementioned Intel chip, Bluetooth 4.1 for connectivity, and a battery that measures in at 400mAh, which Fossil says is “estimated all day” in longevity. The watch itself is stainless steel, and so is the strap. It’s IP67-rated water resistant, and it does indeed have a touchscreen. It can connect to Android 4.4+ and iOS 8+.
A quick search for any Fossil stores that might have stock ready for pickup was fruitless, so if you want to get your wrist underneath a Q Founder, it looks like the safest bet is ordering online.
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