News & Reviews:   Android

Companies are slowly moving away from including the humble 3.5mm jack on their smartphones. We have a few companies already coming out with devices sans the jack - LeEco, Motorola and the most famous of all, Apple. Now the organization behind the USB standard has come up with a new guideline for a spec called USB Audio Class 3.0, which eliminates the need of having an audio jack in the smartphone altogether.  

While Facebook is a great platform to connect with your friends and family, the queen to have two different apps on your smartphone to be on that social network can be infuriating. Facebook is trying to lessen the burden of the users by deploying a lighter version of their Messenger app, aptly named Messenger Lite – and Malaysia is one of the first countries in the list.

The Google event is happening in less than a day, and we have a pretty good idea what Google will be announcing at the said event. A telco in Canada however has spilled the beans a day too early, so we have all the details of the new Google Pixel & Pixel XL.

Nokia is coming back to the smartphone market, and they are expected to run Android OS on board their devices. Until now we do not have any indication on the device that Nokia will be putting on the market, but a new entry by Geekbench may reveal some clues to their plans in the near future, with the upcoming Nokia D1C.

After the successful entry to the Japan market, Spotify is growing ever more in its presence online, and now they are said to be in talks to purchase Soundcloud, in a deal that could be around USD 700 million (~RM 2.9 billion).

We are still looking and waiting for the foldable smartphone to come to fruition. We expect Samsung to be the first company to bring the foldable smartphone to the market – but according to a new patent filed by them, we may see a foldable tablet first instead.

After going through many different models throughout the years, Blackberry, the phone company from Waterloo, Canada has decided that they will not be designing anymore smartphones in the future.

The Samsung Veyron phone is set to go on sale pretty soon, if the news are correct. We have seen how it looks like, but a new list of specs from GFXBench has confirmed some important information of the features, which will be included in the flagship flip phone.

We are expected to see something special this coming 4th October, as Google readies to launch several new items. One of them is apparently a new software initiative, which Google is calling “Andromeda”, an Android/Chrome hybrid OS.

With the success of the Huawei P9 and P9 Plus, Leica and Huawei has recently signed a partnership into a new join venture called the ‘Max Berek Innovation Lab’. The two companies will be collaborating on development of new optical systems and software technologies to improve imaging quality in smartphones and other photographic applications.