Leak: ZTE To Launch A 6-Inch Phablet Made Partly With Carbon Fiber?

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A new leak has surfaced displaying a phablet to come from ZTE that has a carbon fiber design. The ZTE M1001 image leaks come from tenna, which is known for getting their hands on some rather interesting images of upcoming devices bound for the Chinese market. The M1001 reportedly comes with a 6-inch display attached, which is a bit bigger than most of the phablets that we see. However phablet sized devices are becoming more mainstream in places like China, so it’s not surprising to see one this big coming from ZTE who is based in the region and is huge in the market there.

The phablet looks to have fairly slim bezels, which is something we see as a trend with what consumers are wanting out of future devices. The smaller the bezel the better it seems like these days. The device reportedly weighs just 171g, and is said to come with 2GB of RAM and an octa-core processor made by MediaTek. The MT6592 chip is clocked in at 1.7 GHz. The ZTE M1001 will of course support the use of dual SIM cards, as is common with devices in the Chinese market as well. The camera is said to be an 8MP sensor on the rear, and a 5MP sensor on the front. We can tell from the images that the device is actually quite thin, and paired with the size of the display it sounds like an interesting device.

So far it looks like the ZTE M1001 will only come in a 3G variant listed as being made for the China Mobile network, and support the TD-SCDMA technology. Were not sure if ZTE is only planning to launch the one model of the device or if this is just the first one to show up on the web. In either case it may not matter for most of us outside the region as we won’t be able to use the device. If ZTE ever entered other regions with a device like this would you consider buying? For a phone that has some carbon fiber built into the outer body, what would you pay to be a proud owner?

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Amazon App Store Now Has 200,000 Apps And Counting

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Amazon’s app store may not be as big as Google’s play store, but it’s still a great place to get apps and Amazon’s CEO has just announced that the app store now has over 200,000 apps available to users. That may seem like small potatoes compared to what were used to but you have to remember that there are a lot more developers making apps for the play store as it’s a more popular platform. With that said, it’s nice to see the Amazon app store gaining growth in app numbers, because it means that we’ll see more likely candidates for the free app of the day, which is one of the best things about the app store.

According to Jeff Bezos, the Amazon app store is now three times the size than it was just a year ago. That’s actually pretty amazing, but not too surprising considering the amount of kindle fire tablets they sell at the Amazon website, and the efforts they have put in to draw in app developers. The app store is also now accessible in over 200 countries globally, another great things for consumers who choose Amazon’s tablets over other option around the world. There is still plenty of room for growth with there largely being a gap of over 800,000 apps between the Amazon app store and the competition from Google and Apple, but they are making progress and still adding more apps to their library and will continue to do so hopefully for a while.

While the Amazon app store may not have as many apps under its belt as other competing markets, it surely must have less low quality apps as well. Amazon reportedly focuses more on the quantity of their app content rather than pumping out large numbers of apps to add to the library of available downloads. We won’t disagree with what Amazon is doing if it means less terrible apps to sift through. Amazon’s app store is built in to every single kindle fire tablet that ships, and is available for download for non-amazon devices from Amazon’s website. Do any of you use the Amazon app store for apps? Is the play store the only place for you, or are you like me and keep the Amazon app store around for the free app of the day?

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30+ Tips and Tricks for the HTC One (M8)

Samsung Galaxy S5 Packaging Comes Complete With Region lock Explanation Sticker

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Unlocked devices are something you would expect to be completely unlocked from the time of purchase. However that seems to not have been the case with one of Samsung’s previous devices-the Galaxy Note 3- and now the Galaxy S5 as well. The breakdown is that Samsung has basically region locked the European version of those devices, which of course caused a lot of people to be quite upset when learning this, and rightfully so as they thought they were getting something entirely different than they actually did. The full story though is that the region lock is only temporary and would be disabled if a customer had first used the device with a SIM card from the region where they bought the device. The main issue last time around was that people were unaware of the region lock as it seems that it wasn’t clearly explained.

Samsung wants to avoid any sort of negativity surrounding the issue with the Galaxy S5 if they can, which is why they have attempted to halt any sort of backlash ahead of time by branding the Galaxy S5′s packaging with a sticker that fully explains the details of the region lock for the Galaxy S5. The full message on the sticker states that the product should be activated with a SIM card from a mobile operator within Europe, and that to make any calls from regions outside of Europe, a call that lasts at least five minutes would have to be placed while using a SIM card from said European operators.

While some people may still not like that Samsung has region locked the device at all, at least they’re properly explaining how to get rid of the lock. If you’re someone who lives in a European region and has purchased or will be purchasing a Galaxy S5 Unlocked model, it seems all you have to do is go and put at least five minutes of time on a SIM card from any mobile operator, insert it into the phone, and make a call to use up the five minutes of time. At that point you’re phone is unlocked completely and can be used outside of Europe as much as you like.

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Download Booster For The Galaxy S5 Seems To Be A T-mobile Only Feature

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Earlier this week we reported that the popular Download Booster feature was in fact missing from the ATT version of the Galaxy S5, a feature that was heavily advertised by Samsung at Mobile World Congress. Just to recap for those that may have missed it, the Download Booster feature uses both WiFi connection(when available) and LTE network connection to download files, so when downloading a rather large app, game, or any other type of file, everything gets downloaded much faster because portions of the file are downloaded by each connection at the same time. It would appear that ATT isn’t the only carrier that has the Download Booster feature missing from it’s live models though, as the Sprint version of the device seems to be lacking the feature anywhere in the menus as well. There are no toggle switches in sight allowing users to turn the Download Booster on or off. Verizon’s product page is also lacking a description of support for the feature.

So what gives? So far there isn’t any confirmation from any of the carriers as to why the feature won’t be available to users at the devices launch, however we suspect that it will end up getting pushed out to users in an update in the future. This was the case with the HTC One M8 on Sprint with the Ultra Power Saving mode. What’s interesting, is that T-Mobile is the only carrier of the four major US wireless service providers that lists the device will have support for the feature, yet other carrier sites like Verizon’s doesn’t have the feature listed at all. There hasn’t been a live T-mobile Galaxy S5 model to verify yet if the feature will exist upon launch but all signs point to it being present.

From what we know, the Download Booster feature is one that the carriers have the choice to support or not support, per the description of the feature in the phones manual. In a response to a question on the Verizon Galaxy S5 product page, someone from VZW acknowledges the comment with a simple reply that Verizon currently does not support the Download Booster. So there you have it. Whether the feature is included in the phone from your carrier or not is completely up to your carriers discretion. Since it’s not available immediately, here’s hoping it comes later, although there are alternative apps to do the same thing.

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Chromecast Support Comes To Aero, Bringing Live TV To Your Big Screen Without Cable

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Yet another application is coming along with Chromecast support for our viewing pleasure. Starting at the end of next month on May 29th, Aero which is a service and app that offers live TV channels of various types including many popular channels will begin the Chromecast compatibility. For those who are always on the hunt for a new way to watch TV and get the TV shows and other live TV content that they crave, Aero is definitely worth looking into and seeing if it offers you what you’re looking for. Aero was already a great app to begin with, but now with upcoming Chromecast support, users can break away from the constraints of traditional television and save some money to get a lot of the same great content.

In case you’re wondering, Aero is quite a bit cheaper than what your cable TV provider might charge you. At a low price of only $8 a month, users of the app can tap into Aero’s cloud based antennae with DVR, in which you’ll get 20 total hours of DVR use. That’s plenty of recording time depending on what you fill the DVR up with, from 20 one hour long episodes of your favorite show to double that amount of episodes of a half hour sitcom. If you’re a real big TV buff and 20 hours just isn’t enough for you, you can pay an extra $4 for a total of $12 a month, and get 60 total hours of DVR access. So that breaks down to one third more the cost of the starter subscription, but you get three times more the DVR hours. Not only that, but Aero lets you try before you buy, giving you access free for the first 30 days.

The list of video content coming to your TV just keeps growing and makes Chromecast that much more of a great deal. With the ease of casting content to your TV from any of your android devices, and the price back down to just $30 there has never been a better time to pick one up. Chromecast is also officially now available in other regions as well like the UK so it’s even more available then before. What’s your favorite app to use with Chromecast?

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Fake Virus Scanner App Was All A Mistake Says App’s Developer

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Last week we reported that a seemingly useful Virus Scanner app that was found to be fake, was basically scamming people into spending their hard earned money on an app that did literally nothing. The fake app, which was a virus scanner application called Virus Shield, was the number one paid app in the Play Store not more than a few days after it had been uploaded in. The app reportedly racked up thousands of downloads-many of them seemingly fake as well, with fake positive comments to accompany the download- and as you could imagine at $3.99 each download, that amounted to a whole lot of money and around $90,000 total. The app had since been pulled from the store and was removed late night on April 6th.

We’re learning today that the developer behind the application, one Jesse Carter and founder of “Deviant Solutions”(are we the only ones that see that name as a red flag?), had told The Guardian in an interview that the publishing of the app without its intended working code to actually provide users with virus scanning qualities, was all a foolish mistake and that users would be getting a refund of the money they spent on the app. Jesse had stated in the interview that the version of the app that had been uploaded and then download by some 30,000 plus users, was an early test build that was not meant to be released to the public, and says that it was a mistake by one of the developers. It sounds to us like Jesse is placing the blame elsewhere for something that seems a lot like it was intentional.

Carter further goes on to explain that there was a mix up with the app that went out, and the version of the app that was meant to be released, and because of the huge mistake that Deviant Solutions may end up deciding to re-release their app for free in the future, but not before it has the working code that actually provides a service. You can imagine why we’d be a little skeptical about the whole mistake scenario, given some details that were pointed out by android police after Carters interview. Not only were there tons of comments from users with what we could only assume were fake profiles giving the app stellar reviews, the app was updated during its short lived time on the play store from version 1.0 to 2.2. We find it hard to believe that no one would notice vital pieces of the software missing that makes it do anything at all, while actually pushing out an update to users almost a week after the initial release. We suppose that we’ll find out if Carter’s story has any truth to it if Virus Shield ever gets re-released as a free app with the intended code. We suspect though that if that does happen, people will be less likely to download the app, whether it be again or for the first time due to lack of trust. We’ll hold judgement until more information comes to light.

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