Deal: Chromecast Available for $29.99

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Right now, Amazon has the Google Chromecast on sale again for $29.99, which isn’t much of a sale since it’s only about $5 off, but that’s still $5 you could spend on a movie from Google Play or on some popcorn, right? Chromecast is one of those devices that we all love because of how easy it is to stream stuff on our TV. I mean we can control it from our smartphone, tablet or laptop. It’s just so easy. Chromecast also has a ton of great apps that are compatible with it now, including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Google Play Music, Google Play Movies & TV, HBO Go, and plenty of other apps as well.

How many of you out there haven’t picked up a Chromecast yet? Well why not? It’s an impulse buy. Especially With Amazon having it for $29.99, and don’t forget it’s free 2-day shipping if you have Amazon Prime. If you do pick one up, be sure to let us know what you think about it in the comments down below.

Google Chromecast HDMI Streaming Media Player

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Worldwide Android News 04/06/14 – Neo M1, Galaxy Mega Plus, CoolPad F1 and More!

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Galaxy Ace Style Gets Shown Off in Germany

Samsung has long been known to offer budget devices to cover the vast majority of the market, and it looks like the Galaxy Ace Style is going to be their latest device. Coming in at 4-inches the Galaxy Ace Style has been spotted on trade floors in Germany with an 800 x 480 display resolution, and a dual-core 1.2 Ghz CPU. Not too much is known about the device just yet, but this is definitely going to be an affordable option unlocked on carriers throughout Europe.

Huawei’s Ascend Mate 2 4G Goes Up for Sale in China

The massive 6.1-inch Ascend Mate 2 is going on sale in China complete with 4G LTE support. With 4G networks having recently switched on, more manufacturers will be taking advantage of the new speeds available. Huawei’s giant Ascend Mate 2 is now going on sale in China for 2,888 Yuan, and is powered Huawei’s own 1.6 Ghz Quad-Core CPU and features some impressive specs overall, although this is just a 720p display, so things could be better.

CoolPad F1 Now Available in WCDMA Variety

The Octa-Core powered F1 from CoolPad has been on sale in China, but only to those who have a supported network. Now, the 5-inch, 720p device is being sold for around $230 with support for 900 and 2100 Mhz, which should make this thing usable on 3G in most of Europe. The F1 is powered by an Octa-Core MediaTek CPU clocked at 2.0 Ghz and features a 2,500 mAh battery, so there’s a lot to love here, for sure.

Lenovo A526 Launches in India for Just RS 9,499

Being known for some decent budget offerings in the region, the A526 from Lenovo is on sale for just RS 9,499 and features a 4.5-inch 854 x 480 display, a quad-core MediaTek MT6582M CPU and more. For this sort of money, you’re not going to expect too much from a device and indeed, you shouldn’t. There’s a 5-megapixel camera around back that works together with a mediocre VGA front-facing camera. 4GB of storage is onboard, but this is expandable with microSD cards.

Samsung Galaxy Mega Plus Launches in Hong Kong with Quad-Core CPU

When Samsung launched the 5.8-inch Galaxy Mega in order to offer a large smartphone experience at an affordable price, they launched it with a dual-core CPU, which was more than adequate for a lot of things. However, now they’re launching a “Plus” version of the device in China which features a 1.2 Ghz quad-core CPU for extra performance. It doesn’t look like much else has changed besides the amount of processing cores included under the hood, and there’s no word on price just yet.

Gigabyte GSmart Rey R3 Now Available in Taiwan

Known more for their motherboards than smartphones, Gigabyte is launching yet another device into the mobile market. The GSmart Rey R3, is to be available in Taiwan and features a 4.5-inch 854 x 480 display, a dual-core MediaTek CPU, 1GB of RAM and more. There’s an 8-megapixel camera included here around the rear and it’s safe to say that this is more of a budget smartphone than anything else.

Xolo Q2500 PocketPad Launches in India

Another device from popular brand Xolo, the PocketPad Q2500 features a large 6-inch 720p display and is powered by a MediaTek MT6582 CPU and 1GB of RAM. It features an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera capable of 1080p recording and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, all powered by Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and a 3,000 mAh battery. Launching for just RS 14,999, the Q2500 is a good deal and comes with a free flip case, too.

MediaTek Devices to Get Android 4.4 KitKat Soon

MediaTek is a company that really need to get their software in order. They blatantly ignore the GPL and refuse to open source their code, and let many devices languish on an outdated version of Android. That might change soon, as the Taiwanese manufacturer is apparently working on Android 4.4 for many of its popular chipsets, like the MT6589 and the MT6592. Of course, we doubt this new code will be open sourced, and binaries will be sent out to their partners, but getting the latest version of Android on these devices would be great.

Neo M1 Launching April 10th; Complete With English Website

The upcoming Neo M1 is approaching fast and it’s apparently going to be available for international customers right from launch, with an English website as well. According to rumor, this device is supposed to be a 5.5-inch, 5.9mm thick device with a Sony camera and MediaTek CPU. It’s all pretty exciting, and we don’t know have much longer to wait, so let’s see what happens over the next week or so.

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Android Headliner: Is the Fire TV Amazon’s Vision of the Google TV?

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We all know about Google TV, this was Google’s attempt to take over your living room, which didn’t work out as well as they had hoped for. While Google TV did what it did pretty well, that’s about all it did. Soon after, manufacturers and even Google stopped really supporting it. Many Google TV products are still running on Android 3.x – Honeycomb, which is why you still see Honeycomb in the distribution numbers each month. This week, Amazon announced the Fire TV which is a pretty interesting device. It can handle all your TV shows and movies as expected, but it can also do gaming. And not just gaming like Angry Birds, or Tic Tac Toe, but gaming like Asphalt 8, or Dead Trigger. Heck, Amazon even has their own game studio they bought earlier this year. So Amazon is going all in on their set-top box. Which leads us to believe, is this what Amazon had visioned the Google TV to be?

While the Google TV was a nice product, it’s just about dead now. Why? Because Google hasn’t announced anything new for it in quite sometime. The last thing we heard about the Google TV was that its getting Android 4.4 by the end of 2013, and a few of them did, but many of them did not. Many of us feel that Chromecast has replaced the Google TV now, even though Google says it hasn’t. The more and more I look at the Fire TV, the more I like it. Not just because it’s a set-top box, but because it’s like the perfect Google TV. Sitting at just $99, or $140 if you add in the game controller. It has loads of content, including Amazon Prime Instant Video – even though we don’t have an Android app, only a Kindle Fire App, what’s up with that Amazon? And there’s also loads of games for the Amazon Fire TV. Which is interesting to say the least.

What is everyone else’s thoughts on the Fire TV? Is it really Amazon’s vision of what the Google TV should have been all along? Let us know in the comments down below.

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Rumor: Android TV is About to Invade Your Living Room

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Your living room is about to get a little bit more Googley, according to a bombshell of a news story that just hit the Internet about the search engine giant’s latest endeavor. Word has it, the announcement of Android TV is on the horizon, and the goal for the platform is to provide an “extremely simple set-top-box experience” to consumers, while making it simple to find and enjoy the latest and greatest content.

It is important that Android TV is not confused with Google TV, even though the latter was an Android-based platform. Rather than trying to provide a smartphone-esque experience on your television screen, Google has toned things down tremendously with Android TV. In fact, Google writes in documents obtained by The Verge, “Android TV is an entertainment interface, not a computing platform.” The document also states that “Android TV is Android, optimized for the living room consumption experience on a TV screen. It will be cinematic, fun, fluid, and fast.”

There is already talk of a number of app developers on board to create apps and games for the Android TV platform. The list of compatible apps is said to include Google’s own YouTube, Play Movies and Hangouts, as well as a number of popular streaming services that have become a staple in today’s mainstream media consumption, like Netflix, Hulu, Songza, Pandora, Vevo and more. There’s no talk of what kinds of games to expect to see on Android TV, but it might be safe to assume there won’t be anything too intricate, considering Google’s initiative to keep the platform simple. That’s not to say there won’t be anything fun to play, rather you might want to look elsewhere if you’re looking for a more game-oriented experience.

It’s still very early to tell if there’s any truth to this story. We all know images can be faked, and buzz can be falsely created. Even The Verge states that Google declined to comment for this story — you didn’t expect them to fully leak their own goodies, did you? For now, all we have are the screenshots provided by The Verge and the information they’ve passed along. If the screenshots are fake, they’re at least well done and thought provoking.

No pricing information or time frame for an announcement was given, but with Google I/O coming up next month, what better time and place is there for such an announcement? We’ll certainly stay tuned to this one, but for now we want to know what you think about Android TV. Drop us a comment in the thread below.

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CyanogenMod 11 M5 Builds Now Hitting Select Devices

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For those of you running CyanogenMod 11 on your device, well their fifth “monthly” build is hitting their servers right now. For those that don’t know their M builds aren’t technically monthlies or milestones. But just a semi-stable build of CM 11 for each device. As far as stability goes, it’s right in the middle of stable and nightly. Which is the perfect combination for someone who likes being on the bleeding edge of technology but not enough time to flash a nightly everyday. Cyanogen Inc’s monthly builds are generally pretty stable and come out each month. Here’s the change log for this month’s release.

Trebuchet – Fix last icon from hotseat disappearing

Trebuchet – Fix custom home transition effect

Volume Panel – Increase opacity of transparency (previous level led to visibility concerns)

WhisperPush – Relocate to Privacy menu

WhisperPush – fix NPE on viewing identity if unregistered

Translations – Initial imports from CrowdIn (followup blog post next week)

MultiSim – Additional support patches (25+)

Privacy Guard – Additional AppOps permissions

Additional Right-to-left (RTL) layout mirroring support

Settings – Add ‘screen color’ support

Quickboot support (device specific)

Stylus – Fix eraser being disabled by palm rejection

NavBar – Allow toggle in runtime (needs kernel support)

Add ethernet icon support to status bar

Dialer – Open Source forward/backward/incoming look-up

What’s interesting is that the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy S4 were left out in this release, at least for now. I’m sure we’ll see their M5 releases real soon. But for now, you can head over to CyanogenMod’s download page and check out the new builds and find the one for your device. Please be sure you get the right device, because as most of you know there are several versions of each flagship, due to carriers, and regions. So be careful.

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Android How To: Enable Developer Options on the HTC One M8

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As usual with new devices, it’s time to show you how to do all kinds of things. Like enabling Developer options on the HTC One M8. Ever since Android 4.2 was released, Google decided to hide the developer options. Which is actually a good thing. Because some people that may not know what they are doing may go into Developer Options and mess around with stuff which is not smart. But the good thing is it’s hidden in the same place on just about every smartphone or tablet. Making it easy to enable them again.

To get into Developer Options, simply jump into the Settings. Then you’re going to scroll down to the bottom and tap on ‘About’, next tap on ‘Software Information’. Now you’ll need to tap on ‘More’, which will give you a new menu. Now just tap on the build number 9 times and you’ll enable Developer options. Just head back out to the main settings menu, and you should see ‘Developer Options’ just above the ‘About’ option. So now you are able to enable USB Debugging, and so much more. In fact, you can even record your screen, which is pretty awesome as well.

It’s pretty much the same process on every device, but some manufacturers like to put the build number in different spots, like HTC did here. Which isn’t a big deal, but that’s why we’re here, to help everyone out. This is just the start of our many tutorials for the HTC One M8. As we want to be sure you get as much out of your device as you possibly can. After all it is a $650 smartphone, and you want to use every bit of it, right? If you have any questions about the HTC One M8, be sure to let us know in the comments below.

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Android Headliner: The HTC One (M8) is a Design Refinement and That’s More Than Okay

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Right now, as I write this, there’s a pretty new HTC One (M8) sitting across from me on my desk. Despite the fact HTC gave their latest and greatest an awful name, they sure gave it some good looks. However, not everyone feels the same about the One, in fact a lot of you feel HTC have been just as lazy as Samsung with the design of their latest flagship. As Android users, we’ve become accustomed to massive changes, complete code overhauls and manufacturers changing their design language over and over again. That’s all changed now though, and even Google have kept the design of Android much the same since 2012’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. So, does it matter that HTC didn’t try to fix a formula that wasn’t broken?

Android users and pundits alike have long panned Apple for sticking to the same formula over and over, and over and over again. Now, Samsung and HTC are doing the same. We have to wonder whether or not this sort of thing really matters anymore, as the M8 is a joy to look at. It feels better in the hand, the curved backing makes for a comfortable heft doesn’t dig into your palm. The brushed aluminum look adds a whole new level of class to the device and the binning of those capacitive touch buttons makes the front of the device much cleaner. So too, does the placement of the front-facing camera and light sensor which now look as if they’re part of the design, not just there because they have to be.

In my eyes, there’s nothing wrong with refining a formula that worked well the first time. When the HTC One was first announced last year, the Taiwanese company changed their design language completely and drastically shifted towards a metal unibody design. That was a revolution that I feel HTC had to make in order to stand out from the Samsungs of the mobile market, but today HTC didn’t need another revolution in design. Instead, the company has gone on to prove that evolution can be better than revolution.

Changing things for the sake of it is just a bad idea, and for all of those out there that thing HTC, Samsung and Sony should try something drastically new, you need to realize it’s not as easy as that. The mobile industry has had its shake-up, there’s no need for HTC and co to throw well-established designs out of the window to try something new for the sake of it. Not to mention that HTC is a company that can’t really afford to take such a high-stake risk on something completely new and different.

Sure, the M8 is familiar and for those that want something different have plenty of other options out there, but compared to the majority of other smartphones on the market, the design is still unique enough to stand out and have people take notice. It’s not too often I gush about hardware design, I like to keep things simple and while the HTC One certainly seems like a busy design, it’s better-looking and cleaner than it was last year, and I don’t want to send my review unit back.

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