Bring Your Own Device to Verizon, and Get a Discount on your Monthly Bill

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T-Mobile has unleashed a war on their competitors in the past year, and we’ve seen AT&T and Sprint come right back at Magenta with their plans. AT&T and Sprint have both offered discounts for those that are bringing their own device over to the network. Now the last carrier to do so is Verizon, and has announced today on a blog post that they will be offering a $10 discount on the monthly access fee for those that sign up for their “More Everything” data plan with 8GB of data or less. Making it $30 on top of the data plan with unlimited talk and text. While it’s not a huge discount, it’s still a discount, and that $10 adds up. Verizon’s new promo goes into effect April 17th. And yes, I did say promo. Verizon also stated that this will only happen for a limited time only.

Basically what this means is that you can buy a Galaxy S5 at full price – if you don’t want to extend your contract – and you’ll get $10 off your monthly bill. Which doesn’t really seem worth it. Let’s do some math real quick. The Galaxy S5 is going for $199 on contract. And if you keep the device for 2 years, that’s $240 off your bill over the course of two years. Which the $199 + 240 is only $439. Which means you paid over $200 more to buy the Galaxy S5 at full price. So Verizon is obviously going to be pushing you to buy devices from them on a contract as it means recurring profits for them.

It’s great to see Verizon beginning to step up to T-Mobile. Last week they stepped up to their Tablet plan, offering a gigabyte for free for the lifetime of that tablet. Which is arguably a better deal than what T-Mobile was offering, even though they were doing 1.2GB for the rest of the year. But we do know how much of a difference there is between T-Mobile and Verizon’s network. Verizon’s is much larger, faster and more reliable.

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HTC One (M8): How to take a screenshot

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Samsung Trademarks Galaxy V:, Galaxy S Fitness and Galaxy Adore Names

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Samsung has just filed for trademarks on three new names for – what we believe to be – future smartphones. There’s the Galaxy V:, Galaxy S fitness and Galaxy Adore. Obviously the Galaxy S Fitness is going to have something to do with fitness, and maybe even another fitness tracker. It could also have some heavy integration with the Gear Fit, as that is basically a fitness tracker. Now the Galaxy V:, and yes the colon is part of the name for some strange reason. We really have no idea what this could. My first thought was the Galaxy S5 in roman numerals, but then I realized they forgot the S. Perhaps this could be a new line of smartphones for Samsung? It would be interesting and entirely possible. As they like to make a ton of smartphones each year. Then there’s the Galaxy Adore, which is about as mysterious as the Galaxy V:. One thing’s for certain though, all three of these will run Android and not Tizen or Windows/Windows Phone. Because Samsung uses Galaxy for their Android line, Ativ for Windows and well Gear is basically for Tizen now.

It’s also important to note that these do not point to just smartphones. But the trademark applications point to portable computers, tablets, smartphones and more. And since Samsung makes everything under the sun, I wouldn’t put it past them. What if their next refrigerator was named the Galaxy Adore? That would be kinda cool, in my opinion. We’ve got a link down below to the USPTO, where Samsung has filed for these names, but there are no links to specific trademark applications.

So what does everyone think Samsung is up to with these new trademarks? Maybe some more tablets? Or some smartphones? It’ll be interesting to see. But what’s interesting, and needs pointing out, is that they will be coming to the US since they are filing trademarks with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

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Explorer Gets his Glass Stolen and Smashed to the ground in San Francisco

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This story has been making the rounds since Friday, and we’ve been waiting to run it until we had more information, which we do now. A reporter, Kyle Russell, was in San Francisco covering some events and such, as a typical journalist would. He was heading to the 16th BART Startion, probably to head to his hotel or head home, when a woman aka a Glass hater, yelled “Glass!” then ripped his Glass off his face and ran off with them. She didn’t get away with the $1500 pair of Glass though, as they did get smashed on the ground. This is reportedly the second incident like this in the past month.

Now this is atypical to a hate crime. But it’s also important to note that Russell was using Glass in broad daylight and outdoors. So it’s not like he was in a bar, Casino or another establishment with them on. In fact, it’s likely that Russell was using Glass to aid his story, by using the video recording functionality. Although that’s kinda mute at this point. It appears that Russell was wearing Glass in the wrong place at the wrong time. Russell stated:

“Unfortunately, anything associated with Google has come to represent gentrification in the city, from the buses that take young software engineers to their corporate campuses in Silicon Valley to Google Glass. This is especially true in areas where gentrification and income inequality have become points of conflict in the community,”

Glass didn’t survive the mean streets of San Francisco, as the device doesn’t respond to touch or voice anymore. Hopefully Google will replace them for him free of charge, although there’s no word on that just yet. Also, don’t forget that Google is opening the flood gates tomorrow for Glass. So if you’ve wanted to spend $1500 on Glass, tomorrow’s your chance. It’s open to anyone in the US.

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Samsung’s Commercial for the Gear Fit Highlights the best feature, That Curved Display

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Samsung announced the Gear Fit in February at Mobile World Congress along side the Galaxy S5. Now this actually caught us all by surprise. We knew they were launching the Gear 2 at Mobile World Congress, and in fact it was announced two days before hand. But the Gear Fit, we knew nothing about. It actually turned into the most interesting wearable that Samsung had at Mobile World Congress this year. The Gear Fit is more of a fitness tracker than anything, but it does have a curved AMOLED display, which we know that Samsung has been working on for some time – just look at the Galaxy Round they announced last year for Korea. But to see it in a product they are going to be pushing hard, is amazing. The Gear Fit is my favorite wearable from Samsung right now, as I’m sure I’m not alone. It looks amazing, and the curved display looks great too. Samsung decided to price it at $199, which I think is the right price for this one.

The Gear Fit went on sale last Friday, April 11th after being available for pre-order for a few weeks. So we are now beginning to get all the reviews out and available from various sites now. As we are getting a real feel of what Samsung was working towards with the Gear Fit. They’ve integrated it pretty well into S Health, which we expected. S Health is actually one of my more favorite features and Apps that Samsung has developed. I used it on the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3 last year, and loved it. Being a person that works from home, that’s something I want and need, so that I can stay active.

How many of you have picked up the Samsung Gear Fit already? How many of you are still planning on it? Let us know in the comments below.

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Android 4.4.3 Hitting Sprint Nexus 5s From Today?

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For a long time now, we’ve been hearing about an update to Android 4.4 KitKat, and today might be the day we see the first rollout of such a release. The much-rumored Android 4.4.3 release might be happening later today, if Sprint’s latest support documents are to be believed at least. According to Sprint’s support site, a new update is about to roll out to Sprint Nexus 5s, it brings with it support for Spark bands 26 and 41 and “misc Android updates”, and comes with a build number of KTU48F.

Considering that the Sprint version of the Nexus 5 is exactly the same as the unlocked one from the Play Store, this could be a sign that the Nexus 5 is about to get a new build of Android. However, there is of course the slight chance that this is a Sprint-only update just for Spark purposes, as the carrier has been updating a flurry of devices to bring faster LTE speeds. We’re assuming that this is the update that will fix the dreaded camera bug that effects not only the Nexus 5 but the new Nexus 7 as well. A point release like this is the norm for Google and on platforms that aren’t using a Qualcomm processor, we’re sure that other bugfixes will be coming along for the ride as well.

Later on today, we should know whether or not this update was Android 4.4.3, but don’t get disheartened if the update doesn’t arrive today for you. Updates like these will take a couple of days to hit everyone, but if you do get the update, let us know in the comments and over on Google+ if this brings your Nexus up to Android 4.4.3, and if there are any noticeable changes. We’ll be keeping an eye on this one, and hopefully have some more news soon.

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HTC One (M8) Mini Due to hit store shelves in Taiwan in May?

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The HTC One (M8) Mini still is not official, but according to a new report coming out of Taiwan – HTC’s homeland – it appears that the device will hit store shelves there as early as next month. Last year, HTC made a HTC One mini, and it was actually one of my favorite devices of 2013. Not because it was a mini, but because of how well done it was. Typically a “mini” smartphone has low-end specs, but the HTC One Mini was in between high and and mid-range. It had a 720p Super LCD3 display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor and a gig of RAM. Sure that doesn’t sound spectacular. But a 4.3-inch display with 720p resolution, it’s pretty great. Not to mention the Snapdragon 400, it’s pretty great as well, especially for more mid-range devices.

With the HTC One (M8) Mini, I’m kind of hoping that HTC goes the way of Motorola and Sony. In that they used the same specs in their “mini” smartphones as their regular sized ones. For example, the Sony Xperia Z1 and the Xperia Z1 Compact have the same specs aside from Screen size. We’ll have to wait for official word from HTC on the specs of their mini this year, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed for good things.

HTC has already gone on record and stated that they are happy with the initial sales of the HTC One (M8). Considering it didn’t completely launch until late last week, it’s still a bit hard to see how well it’s doing. The HTC One (M8) is a great smartphone, as you can tell from our review, I just hope it gets the attention it deserves. As usual, the tech press has been praising it like crazy, which we saw last year with the HTC One (M7). That’s what started the whole “ask the internet” thing that HTC is doing in their commercials now.

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