LG Ranks As Fastest Growing Android OEM In The U.S. With The G2 Leading The Way

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Samsung may be the current largest android manufacturer in the U.S., but no one is growing faster than LG. Yes, LG is Korea’s other major electronics company that people tend to forget about, and although the company still lags behind Samsung and Apple for smartphone share here inside the United States, they now hold a total of 8% marketshare when it comes to android devices in the country. Android as a whole has gained a total of 3.8 % of smartphone marketshare over the past year. This growth from LG has put them into the third place ranking of smartphone manufacturers in the US, and with recent devices it’s easy to see why.

According to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech who did the study that includes this data, LG is gaining marketshare within the US based off of its lineup of high-end devices that it offers to customers, compared to the large amount of low-end handsets we have seen from them in the past. LG’s biggest contributor so far is the LG G2. When compared against the iPhone 5S and the Galaxy Note 3, the LG G2 ranked higher for customer recommendation scores with a score of 9.2 out of 10, with the iPhone 5S coming in second of the three at 9.1, and the Note 3 bringing up the rear with a score of 9 even. This is good news for LG, who has been steadily producing higher quality handsets, and has produced the last two Nexus devices with rumors of being the OEM selected for the Nexus 6, and their follow up to the G2, the LG G3 is coming later this year.

Like every OEM, LG has their downfalls, like their slow to update time frame for newer versions of the Android software, but when it comes to the overall experience of the handsets consumers seem to be extremely happy with the choices they have made. If this trend continues for LG, they just might have a shot at dethroning Samsung as the reigning king of Android smartphones, although that would take some time and continued effort to bring customers first class experiences as something like that wouldn’t happen over night.

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Samsung Galaxy TabPRO 10 1 - Guilty of Lag

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Samsung Quietly Included a Baby Monitor in the Galaxy S 5′s Settings

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The Galaxy S 5 was announced just over a month ago at MWC in Barcelona on February 24th. The overall announcement was much calmer than the Galaxy S 4 announcement the year before. Samsung mostly covered the hardware and some of their newer features in their announcement, however they didn’t show the software side of the phone too much.

The Galaxy S 5 is almost set for its global launch on April 11th. Many carriers have already started pre-orders for the new device. The Galaxy S 5 comes with a 16-megapixel rear camera, a 2.1-megapixel front facing camera, a fingerprint scanner on the home button, a heart rate sensor on the back and a new “perforated” rear cover of the phone. Internally, the Galaxy S 5 features a 2800 mAh battery, 2 GB of RAM and a Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor.

We’re just now learning that Samsung has snuck in an interesting accessibility feature into their new flagship. This new feature is designed specifically for parents with young children. If you have a Samsung Galaxy S 5 and a Gear smartwatch, then this feature will work for you. Basically, you leave the phone in the room with your child and if the S 5 detects a child crying, you will receive a notification on your watch.

Samsung does not intend for this feature to be heavily relied upon. They mention in the accessibility option that this is no replacement for human caregiving. They also don’t want you to leave your child alone in the house or building. Samsung designed this accessibility setting more as an aid to parents, rather than a babysitter. Also, it is important to note that Samsung wants the phone to be within 1m of the sleeping child for it to work in the most accurate way possible.

We’ll have to wait and see what other features Samsung has hidden in its new flagship. This baby monitor seems like it could be useful, but you’ll want to make sure that your phone is on silent, or you’ll wake your child up if you get a phone call or notification. It’s really interesting to see Samsung add these features into their phone without really mentioning them. What do you think of Samsung’s new baby monitor in the Galaxy S 5? Do you think it could be a useful tool, or is it a gimmick?

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Samsung’s 2,800 mAh Battery For The Galaxy S5 Was Put To The Test

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Despite all the flack that Samsung has been given recently for their latest flagship device, it would seem that at least the battery is surprising people. What we mean is that the S5′s battery life when compared to other top smartphones comes out ahead. The series of tests completed was to show how well the Galaxy S5 and other high end comparable smartphones perform with life of battery when using certain activities. With the Galaxy S5 having a 2,800 mAh battery you’d think it would be a little lower on the totem pole but according to these charts that isn’t the case.

What we see in these three charts is that the Galaxy S5 actually does surprisingly well in all of them, displaying that even with a battery that holds less power it can still provide longer, better battery life than something has more juice packed inside. Each test was designed to see how well the battery would perform during a specific activity, like 3D gaming, talk time, and internet browsing, all of which might be some of the most battery intensive activities one could do with their devices. In every test the Galaxy S5 was compared to the iPhone 5S, the LG G2, the Sony Xperia Z1, the Galaxy Note 3, and the Nexus 5. Samsung came out ahead of all other devices in two of the the three tests, which were talk time and 3D gaming, with the iPhone 5S barely beating out the Galaxy S5 in the battery life test while internet browsing.

It would seem that Samsung has done some things right with this new phone, even if some of us aren’t too fond of the design. The optimizations they have made to the phones software appear to making a pretty big difference in situations where customers will likely be using their phone plenty of the time. Now we all know how some of you feel about test scores when it comes to devices and their stats, and we know that many variables can be taken into account with the way the battery life lasts for some compared to these tests. With that being said, the battery life looks promising for the Galaxy S5, and when you factor in ultra power saving mode the battery life seems to be much more formidable than people expected.

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April Fools 2014: Google Announces Gmail Shelfie

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Yes, you are right it is March 31st, and not April 1st. But it looks like Google has started their April Fools jokes early this year. We’ve already seen the Pokemon on Google Maps, and the video of Nest CEO Tony Fadell. Now we’re seeing one from the Gmail team. Which they are calling Gmail Shelfie. What it is, is a way to share selfies through Gmail (Share + Selfie = Shelfie, same as Friends + Family = Framily on Sprint). As most of you know, Selfie is the new hot thing right now. Heck Samsung even paid Ellen to take a selfie with a ton of people. It’s even in the Oxford Dictionary as an official word and the front-facing camera on the HTC One M8 is called the Selfie cam.

Google is celebrating Gmail’s 10th birthday with Gmail Shelfies today. When themes launched back in 2012, Google urged us to find the best picture for a theme, and well they say that many of us used pictures of ourselves, there’s even a graph on their blog post to prove it. Google says that Gmail Shelfie is built on the idea that you shouldn’t be selfish with your selfie, and that you should share it. Which is why they are rolling out Gmail Shelfies today. They say the feature should be rolling out in the next few hours. We’re not sure if that’s for real or just another April Fools joke.

Typically Google goes all out for April Fools day. In fact, last year I remember quite a few April Fools jokes from Google. but as far as their April Fools pranks go, this one is kind of lame, compared to others that they’ve done in the past. I think the Google Maps one is a much better prank than the Gmail Shelfie. But be sure to let us know what you think in the comments down below about this prank.

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Google Lets You Catch Em All In Google Maps Pokemon Challenge For April Fools Day

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Google is known for having a little bit of fun where ever they can, and they always manage to do something fun and crazy for April Fools Day. Last year they showed us one of their newest innovations called Google Nose, with the tagline ‘smelling is believing’, allowing you to utilize your smartphone to smell things through the screen using Google Search. While this was just one of the pranks we’ve grown to love from the search company, it was one of the funniest videos they had put out and was really good for a laugh. They also put up Google Treasure Maps, which was quite fun to play with as well. This year for the pranks and April Fools jokes, they have basically turned Google Maps into a giant world full of Pokemon. You can scroll around the map on your Android or iOS device and find Pokemon just hanging out in random places, and if you tap on them, you will get a chance to Catch it by tapping the little pokeball button in the bottom corner of the screen.

By catching pokemon you can then go back and view them in your pokedex, (for those unaware, the pokedex is a catalog within the game that shows you all your pokemon and the information about them) and tapping on each pokemon in your pokedex will show you data on that particular pokemon. There are 150 pokemon in total to catch within Google Maps for android, and you can find them all over the world just by zooming in on the map in larger cities. I found a couple in Portland, but there are literally tons in Tokyo and also quite a few around the Google Plex in Mountain View.

Catching the pokemon has never been this simple, but if you’re a fan of the game series the fun stops with simply finding and collecting them. Although that’s as interactive as it gets, it should put a smile on your face. If you want to keep track of your pokedex you can get back to it by tapping on the search bar within maps when it’s blank, and that will give you an option to open the pokedex or go back to the poke lab(google plex). See if you can catch em all.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Lenovo’s CEO Talks about Branding Motorola

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Earlier this year, we were all shocked to hear that Google had sold Motorola to Lenovo. However, on the other hand it really wasn’t shocking as Motorola had been losing a ton of money every quarter since before Google bought them, and it was driving a wedge between Google and their OEM partners like Samsung and HTC. So Motorola was sold to Lenovo. The deal isn’t yet complete, but we’ve been hearing more and more about Lenovo’s plans for Motorola in the long run. For a little bit we had heard that Lenovo would keep the Motorola branding, especially in markets in which they are already established in, like the US, Latin America and parts of Europe. We might even see “Motorola by Lenovo” branding. In fact, Lenovo has said that they don’t plan to change Motorola at all in those established markets, which is a sigh of relief for Motorola fans and users. But we know something’s going to change. It has too, or else they’ll be continuing to lose money each and every quarter.

Lenovo’s CEO has been dropping hints about what they plan to do with Motorola, but remember that is not the entire plan. Yang will have to wait until the acquisition is approved before he can really put his plans in movement and turn Motorola around, which Lenovo says they can do it in just a few quarters which is something I want to see. With that said, Motorola’s 2014 lineup is already done and was completed under the Google ownership, so we aren’t looking at a Lenovo made Moto X2 coming this summer, or even the Lenovo-made Moto 360 coming next quarter. But those were both under Google’s leadership, which means Dennis Woodside’s leadership as well.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Motorola once the Lenovo acquisition is complete. How many of you are interested in what happens with Motorola in the next year or so?

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