Verizon's Galaxy Note 4 is only now receiving the Android 5.1.1 update

Seemingly wanting to confirm that "better late than never" saying, Verizon has only now decided to release the Android 5.1.1 Lollipop update for its version of the Samsung Galaxy Note 4.

The flagship phablet from 2014 has actually been on the receiving end of this update ever since August of 2015, but that's for internationally sold unlocked units. As always, if you buy yours from a carrier you can wait a lot more.



Case in point, here we are in January 2016, a few months after Google's launched Android 6.0 Marshmallow, and Big Red is sending out Android 5.1.1 to the Note 4. Anyway, after applying the update you'll be on software version LMY47X.N910VVRU2BOK3.

As this is an over-the-air rollout, it may be a few days before it reaches your phone and you get that update notification. If you're impatient, you can manually check for the new software's availability by using the dedicated menu inside Settings. This update adds things, but also removes others - namely, the Amazon Appstore and Amazon Widgets will be gone after the installation.

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TP-Link outs three Android smartphones - Neffos C5L, C5, and C5 Max

Neffos is the new brand established by TP-Link for its first entries in the smartphone market. The Neffos C5L, Neffos C5, and Neffos C5 Max by TP-Link are the first three smartphones aiming to carry the flag for the brand.

All three Neffos smartphones run on Android 5.1 Lollipop, skinned with lightweight-looking proprietary launcher.



The Neffos C5L is the smallest entry of all - it has 4.5" FWVGA display and runs on the Snapdragon 210 chip (4x Cortex-A7 at 1.1GHz, Adreno 304, 1GB RAM). While the hardware doesn't sound impressive, it should be more than enough for a sub-HD smartphone.

The other C5L key features include 8GB expandable storage, 8MP main snapper, a 2MP selfie lens, LTE connectivity and a 2,000 mAh battery.

BlackBerry CEO: BB 10 far from dead; another Android phone this year

BlackBerry CEO John Chen has said that the company's BB 10 operating system is "far from" dead. He made the comment in a post on the company's official blog, where-in he also revealed that BB 10-powered phones such as Passport, Classic, and others will be getting security and privacy enhancements this year.

"The coming version 10.3.3 will be certified for NIAP compliance, meaning it will have passed the strictest government-grade security tests, enabling us to further support our government and regulated customers who use BlackBerry 10 devices and demand the highest levels of security," he said in the blog post.

"We are also planning a version 10.3.4 for later this year with even more security improvements."
While we already know that BlackBerry will only be launching Android phones in 2016, Chen revealed that only one such device will be launched in 2016, adding that the company will be sharing its road-map at an appropriate time.

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BlackBerry moving completely to Android in 2016

Following the moderate commercial success and generally positive reception of its latest Priv smartphone, BlackBerry has announced that it is going all-in as far as Android is concerned. Company CEO John Chen confirmed in an interview at CES that all BlackBerry smartphones launched this year will run Google's operating system.

One could say this move has been a long time coming, and it's better late than never. Once an industry juggernaut, BlackBerry has struggled for a good part of the last decade to find favor with new users, who care increasingly less about BlackBerry's core strengths in enterprise and security and more about things like apps and games, something the now distinctly long in tooth BlackBerry OS was never good at. The move to Android has already won the company some brownie points in the past few weeks so it's good to see the company continue down that road.

Chen refused to comment on the availability and details of the upcoming devices.

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Samsung unveils Galaxy S5 Plus with Snapdragon 805

With a quiet whisper Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S5 Plus – a Snapdragon 805 version of the company's 2014 flagship. This is the small late season upgrade, similar to the Galaxy S4 LTE-A that launched late last year. Just like its predecessor the new Plus model brings a faster LTE connection in addition to the improved performance.

The Galaxy S5 originally launched with the Snapdragon 801 chipset that included a 2.5GHz quad-core processor. The new processor is also at 2.5GHz but it's a new core – Krait 450. The chipset also has a new generation GPU – Adreno 420 – breaking away from the 3xx series.

Google unveils Android 5.0 Lollipop as an official name

Along with the announcement of the Nexus 6 and the Nexus 9 today, Google also announced that the next iteration of their mobile OS, which we so far knew under the codename Android L, will actually be called Android 5.0 Lollipop.

Android Lollipop was one of the top picks of the rumor mill anyway, but another not so distant possibility was also Lion, which seemed quite reasonable, bearing in mind it will follow right after KitKat.

Android 5.0 Lollipop will ship on the just announced Nexus 6 and Nexus 9, but it will also be available on Nexus 4, 5, 7, 10, and Google Play edition devices in the coming weeks.

Meizu MX4 makes its way to Malaysia for $322

The Meizu MX4 is setting foot in Malaysia by the end of this month. The phone is going to be made available from Meizu itself for a price of $322 (RM 1,048).

For the price, Malaysian customers get the latest generation MediaTek MT6595 chipset with big.LITTLE architecture, 5.3” 1152x1920 IPS display by Sharp, 20.7MP Sony Exmor RS camera, and Android 4.4.4-based Flyme 4.0 OS.

The Meizu MX4 is already up for pre-order internationally and the company's CEO Bai Yongxian states the company has received 7.7 million pre-orders for the device.

The Meizu MX4 is available om 16GB or 32GB variants with prices of $449 and $489, respectively. Both price tags include shipping and import tax to select markets in Europe, North America, Africa, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.

Google releases Android L 64-bit emulator for x86 Intel CPUs

The Android developer community has released an Android L emulator image specifically for Intel's x86 64-bit architecture.

It will allow developers to build or optimize older apps for the upcoming Android L OS and its new 64-bit architecture.

Moving to 64-bit increases the addressable memory space, allows a larger number of registers and new instructions sets for developers.

A Nexus X (aka Nexus 6) rumor : features, specs, price and release date

A few months ago, it seemed that Google had killed the Nexus line of devices, and the Nexus 5 was to remain the last one in the series. Reports from notable bloggers including @evleaks all agreed that Google was about to not only switch its focus from Nexus to the new Android Silver program for affordable markets, but also kill the Nexus series altogether. Then, we heard that Google’s Chief Business Officer, and the main proponent of Android Silver within the company, Nikesh Arora had left. This turned out to mean one thing: the Nexus was back in business.

At first, we were talking about a Nexus 6, a placeholder name that did the job done for the time being, but as more evidence started piling up, we started hearing more about a mysterious Motorola ‘Shamu’, a device uncovered in the Android Open Source Project’s code-base by Android Police at the end of July. 


After all those small fish, it was time for something bigger like a whale. It was time to get excited: after all, Shamu is the name of the killer whale that has survived the most in captivity. Most importantly, it is a name of fish, and that is exactly what Google traditionally uses for its Nexus devices: the Nexus 5 was ‘Hammerhead’, the Nexus 4 carried the ‘Mako’ shark codename, and the Galaxy Nexus was developed under the ‘Tuna’ moniker.

Google Play Store updated to v5.0, gets more Material Design elements

Google has started rolling out v5.0.31 of the Play Store for Android. The major difference here is in the UI, and it’s approximately 600% more Material Design now.

First up, the action bar on top is now teal (or something close to that) with a new side menu and a cool animation for the hamburger button. The side menu shows the same items now, but the font is smaller.

Samsung Galaxy A7 has 1080p screen, A5 will be go out in November

Samsung's upcoming 'A series' of smartphones has been in the news a lot lately, with leaks coming left and right. This usually signifies an announcement arriving in the near future, and that could be just what's going to happen in this case.

According to a new rumor, the Galaxy A5 will already be in stores in November. If that's going to pan out, then we may see it get officially unveiled later this month. As previously leaked, the A5 should cost around $400-450 without a contract.

Meizu MX4 Pro specs allegedly leak, 4GB of RAM rumored

Meizu unveiled the 'normal version' of its MX4 flagship smartphone at the beginning of this month. Yet there are more variants of the MX4 in the works - this has been known for quite a while through various leaks and rumors. At least an MX4 Pro is coming, but that could even be joined by a 'Mini' iteration of some sort.

If you're wondering what kind of specs the ultra high-end MX4 Pro might sport, then this is for you. A purported spec list for the device has leaked in Chinese media, and you can see it to the left.

According to this still unconfirmed document, the Meizu MX4 Pro will come with a 5.36-inch touchscreen with 2,560x1,536 resolution, the same 20.7 MP rear camera with LED flash as the 'vanilla' MX4, and a 13 MP front-facing camera. This would be a huge upgrade in terms of pixels compared to the 2 MP unit on the MX4.

The MX4 Pro will reportedly be powered by a Samsung Exynos 5430 chipset, which will feature an octa-core CPU. This will have four Cortex-A17 cores clocked at up to 2.6 GHz, and four Cortex-A15 cores clocked at up to 2.1 GHz. Aiding the top notch SoC will apparently be no less than 4GB of RAM.

OnePlus One update brings RAW format, new audio codecs

The OnePlus One is now getting a massive OTA update. The new CyanogenMod firmware - CM 11S 38R - brings a plethora of new features, improvements and bug fixes.

Notable upgrades in this firmware are the added RAW format in the Camera app, expanded audio codec playback capabilities, better battery life and ANT+ support. The battery life also got a boost, while quite a few bugs got squashed.

Here is the official complete change log of CM 11S 38R firmware for OnePlus One:

A new Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 8" and 10", a lower pricetag

The new generation Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 family also comes in 8" and 10" versions, besides the gadget-packed 13.3" Pro version. The smaller tablets come in Android and Windows versions.

They are all powered by a quad-core Atom processor and share the Yoga Tablet's trademark kickstand. The new gen introduces the Hang mode – you basically hang the tablet like a picture. The three old modes – Hold, Tilt and Stand – are also possible. Inside the thicker bottom end of the tablet are stereo front-facing speakers by Dolby and Wolfson.

The IPS LCD screens of the 10" and 8" models both have 1,920 x 1,200 pixel resolution, lower than the QHD screen of the Pro model but still fairly sharp in tablet terms – 226ppi and 283ppi respectively.

Motorola DROID Turbo manual is out with a confirms specs

The Motorola DROID Turbo manual has hit the web before the official announcement of the monster handset. The manual details a 21MP camera with dual-LED flash and 2160p video capture.

Samsung issues statement about the new Galaxy Note 4 gap issue!

Some early Samsung Galaxy Note 4 adopters reported an imperfect construction on their flagship phablets – a business card fits in the gap between the screen and the metal frame. Now Samsung has come out with an official statement on the matter but it's mostly PR talk.

"The reported issue does not impact the functionality or quality of the Galaxy Note 4. We assure our customers that all Galaxy Note 4 units meet our strict manufacturing and quality control standards," reads Samsung's statement sent to Trusted Reviews.

Galaxy S5 and Note 4 may get Android L by early December

Android L is undoubtedly going to be released by Google before the end of this year, and as more time passes you might be inclined to ask yourself when or if your particular device will get updated. With Samsung's Galaxy S5 and Note 4, it's clearly not a matter of 'if', as they will both surely receive the new OS version.

Here comes the first rumor on the matter. Apparently you should expect rollouts to commence either in late November or in early December. That would be pretty fast for Samsung, even if Google pushes out the new bits tomorrow.

However, there's no release date for Android L to speak of right now. But it looks like Samsung may be working towards having updates ready sooner than usual. This may of course have something to do with the recent moves by some of Samsung's competitors. Last year, HTC and Motorola were both reasonably fast with updates to Android 4.4 KitKat (Motorola far more than HTC).

Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge benchmark on Antutu

We saw it with previous generations of Galaxy flagships – equalized scores despite very different chipsets. This year the Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge will come with either a Snapdragon 805 or an Exynos 5433 SoC and their AnTuTu scores are practically equal.

The new Samsung N915L, aka Galaxy Note Edge with Exynos, scored just under 48,000 points while the Samsung N910S, aka Galaxy Note 4 with Snapdragon, got just over 48,000 points. The benchmark seems to show negligible difference in multi-core performance and RAM speed.

Motorola Nexus 6 goes through CPU-Z, confirms its chipset

There is a new details regarding the Motorola-made Nexus 6 (codenamed Shamu) have appeared through the Geekbench benchmark database as well as thanks to a couple of CPU-Z screenshot posted on Twitter.

The 5.9" Nexus 6 managed a multi-core Geekbench score of 3199, which is more than the score of both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The high result is thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 chipset with a 2.65GHz quad-core Krait 450 CPU inside and 3GB of RAM.