One Plus 2 Name Confirmed; Details Announced About Android 5.1 Update  

One plus, a day after announcing the new permanent price cut for the Oannouncingne handset in Europe and the US and its partnership with Dropbox, has given details on the upcoming Android 5.1 update for the 'One' smartphone. The firm has also confirmed the name of the next generation OnePlus handset in a couple of forum posts about contests that will let users experience the 'OnePlus 2' first.

While the first post titled "Photo Mania 2015 - Be the first to experience the OnePlus 2!" talks about a Photo Mania 2015 contest, the second  named "Your OnePlus Story - Be the first to experience the OnePlus 2!" gives details on the Your OnePlus Story contest. Both the posts mention "OnePlus 2" several times inside confirming the name of the upcoming smartphone, and winners will get all-expenses-paid trips to the firm's headquarters in Hong Kong to check out the next smartphone ahead of the launch.

Last month, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau, while talking to his Weibo followers about the smartphone tipped the price and 'nearly' confirmed the processor for the handset to be Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810 SoC. We already know that the OnePlus One successor will be released in Q3 2015. Lau agreed with some of his followers who had suggested a price of CNY 2,499 (roughly Rs. 25,000).

Meanwhile, it has been also announced  that while OnePlus users worldwide would be receiving Android 5.1 Lollipop-based CM 12.1 "soon"; the update for OxygenOS  with the same Android build is currently on hold and will be made available for the OnePlus One only after the OnePlus 2 itself is launched. Notably, the entire team for now is said to be working on the OxygenOS release for the OnePlus 2, and can't focus on the OxygenOS OTA update for the One handset side-by-side. As for the Cyanogen OS 12.1 update, the OnePlus team says a preview build is currently undergoing factory testing and Google certification.

Also, the firm said it is working on a fix for the touchscreen issues reported by few OnePlus One users. "Some of you have been experiencing touchscreen issues, we've gone through several iterations of the fix to make sure the solution works with the different panels we have, and eliminated some of the side effects we've seen like battery drain and mura effects. The last iteration is undergoing stringent testing, it's looking stable and promising. Both OxygenOS and CM will get the latest fix," said the OnePlus forum administrator.

Sony Xperia Z4 specs and review in detail:

Specifications

Screen: 10.1in 2K (2560x1600) LCD (299ppi)

Processor: Octacore Qualcomm Snapdragon 810

RAM: 3GB

Storage: 32GB + microSD card reader

Operating system: Android 5.0.2 Lollipop

Camera: 8.1MP rear, 5.1MP front-facing

Connectivity: Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, FM Radio, optional 3G/LTE

Dimensions: 254 x 167 x 6.1mm

Weight: 393g

[This review is based on a near-final pre-production sample of the Xperia Z4 Tablet – some aspects could change, although this is highly unlikely.]

Thinnest and lightest 10in tablet

The big change for the Z4 is the size of the housing. The screen is the same 10.1in, now quad HD with a pixel density of 299 pixels per inch, but the bezels around the screen have shrunk – the tablet is 12mm shorter and 5mm narrower, making it one of the smallest 10in tablets available.
The body is thin with a thickness of 6.1mm, light at 393g, and discrete with hard-wearing black plastic back, and nylon corners that are meant to absorb the energy and stop the screen shattering if the tablet is dropped. It’s an understated design and the thinnest and lightest large tablet yet.

Long battery life for work, short for gaming

The Z4 Tablet is fast and snappy throughout, running Qualcomm’s latest top-of-the-line processor, the octacore Snapdragon 810 with 3GB of Ram and 32GB of storage, plus a microSD card slot.
The Snapdragon 810 has allegedly been plagued by overheating issues. The Z4 Tablet does get warm during heavy use such as installing a bunch of applications at the same time, but quickly cools and the performance is not noticeably affected in general use.
Overall the Z4 Tablet is not quite the fastest Android device I have used this year –that would be the Samsung Galaxy S6 – but is considerably faster than last year’s best Android tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S.
Battery life is a mixed bag. It is excellent for less demanding jobs – giving a full working day of more than nine hours when word processing (more on that later) – but not spectacular when playing games or anything that requires more processing power. That’s likely to do with the difference between the lower-power quad-core chip and the higher-performance, more power-hungry chip that it switches to when needed.
Sony’s excellent power-saving modes can extend battery life by days, including modes that barely limit capabilities but dramatically prolong standby life.

Keyboard

Sony’s big push for its new tablet is taking it into the crossover space between PCs and tablets. The firm has made a new Bluetooth keyboard into which the tablet slots. It has a fully angle-adjustable hinge and when docked in the thin and light keyboard the machine behaves like a laptop.

It’s one of the best tablet keyboards I’ve ever used. The keys are quite short, but are almost full width with good travel and feel. It has a trackpad at the bottom that invokes a traditional mouse cursor on screen, responds to multi-touch gestures and is responsive, making it useful for fine-grain control.

The keyboard has a separate battery and is changed by microUSB. When closed, it protects the screen and creates a very thin and light PC replacement. The keyboard weighs 365g, which makes the overall package, with the tablet, weigh just 758g: around 200g lighter than any laptop.

The keyboard was good enough to use to write the whole of this review and many other articles sat at a desk or on my lap while on the train. My only real niggle was that the right-hand shift key is placed to the right of the directional arrows, meaning I kept hitting backslash while touch typin.

Cameras

Sony makes some of the best cameras in the mobile business – the iPhone and OnePlus One use Sony’s cameras for instance. The 8.1 megapixel camera on the back of the Z4 Tablet is decent, if not exceptional, and is probably one of the best fitted to a tablet. The front-facing 5.1MP camera takes decent selfies and makes for an excellent video-chat camera.

Price

The Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet is available for pre-order, costing £499 for the Wi-Fi only version with the a keyboard shipping at the end of May. A version with 4G mobile data will be available at a later date, with a higher price tag.

For a comparison, Samsung’s 10.5in Galaxy Tab S costed £399 at launch and Apple’s iPad Air 2 costs £399, both without keyboard accessories.

Verdict

Sony’s tablets have always been excellent, but have failed to stand out from the pack. The Xperia Z4 Tablet is the best yet and is thinner and lighter than most, with a great screen and solid battery life.

It’s also waterproof, without any fiddly doors covering the charging or headphones ports, which means there’s basically no downside to being waterproof.

But the best bit is when the tablet is combined with the keyboard, making a very capable and simple laptop replacement that is thinner, lighter and lasts longer on battery than most.

Pros: Thin, light, waterproof, excellent keyboard, microSD card slot, 2K screen

Cons: Not quite as sturdy feeling as some, expensive, variable battery life, no Gorilla Glass

Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet review: the thin tablet that's also an Android laptop

Lighter than an iPad, waterproof and with an excellent keyboard accessory, the Xperia Z4 Tablet is Sony’s best yet

Sony’s Xperia Z4 Tablet is the Japanese firm’s best yet, with small bezels, a bright screen and a waterproof body – but it’s when you add a full keyboard that things start to get interesting.

Sony has a solid heritage in tablets with two excellent entries into the Z series before now. While they have failed to sell particularly well, they have been some of the best Android tablets available. In fact, they have only been let down by the poor amount of tablet-optimised software for Android. That app gap between Android tablets and Apple’s iPad no longer exists.

The Xperia Z4 Tablet will be familiar to anyone who has laid eyes on a Sony smartphone or tablet made in the last couple of years: a thin, waterproof body, black bezels and a brilliant LCD screen.

The big change for the Z4 is the size of the housing. The screen is the same 10.1in, now quad HD with a pixel density of 299 pixels per inch, but the bezels around the screen have shrunk – the tablet is 12mm shorter and 5mm narrower, making it one of the smallest 10in tablets available.

The body is thin with a thickness of 6.1mm, light at 393g, and discrete with hard-wearing black plastic back, and nylon corners that are meant to absorb the energy and stop the screen shattering if the tablet is dropped. It’s an understated design and the thinnest and lightest large tablet yet.

The 2K screen is great: it’s pin-sharp, very bright and with very wide viewing angles. It’s not quite as fantastic as Samsung’s OLED screen on the Galaxy Tab S but is in line with the subtle colours of LCD screens such as Apple’s iPad Air 2.

The screen is not covered by Gorilla Glass – the scratch-resistant glass used in most smartphones and tablets – but instead with Sony’s own scratch-resistant glass. In the past Sony’s own glass has proved to not be as scratch resistant as rivals. A screen protector might be a wise purchase.

Chinese manufacturer Meizu launches smartphone in India; Meizu m1 note!

Another Chinese smartphone maker, Meizu, has launched their device in India today, the Meizu m1 note. The phone will be available exclusively on Amazon India at 2pm starting Wednesday. Meizu has confirmed that the phone will not use a flash sale model, but will instead be freely available on Amazon, although a price has not yet been specified.

The Meizu mi note packs a 1.7GHz 64-bit octa-core Cortex-A53 Mediatek MT6752 processor, with 2GB RAM and a Mali T760 GPU. It has a 5.5" (1920x1080p) full HD screen (403 PPI), 13MP f/2.2 rear cam and a 5MP selfie cam, and runs Flyme OS (based off Android 4.4 KitKat). The phone is dual-SIM, has 4G support, 16Gb storage (expandable up to 64GB), and is powered by a non-removable 3140mAh battery. It weighs 145g, is 8.9mm thick and is available in White, Blue, Yellow, Green and Pink.

LG's flagship smartphone G4 first glance summary

Display and Confisummary

The LG G4 shows off a 5.3-inch IPS Quad HD (1,440 x 2,560 pixels, 554ppi) multi touch display with thin bezels which is bound to leave you spellbound with ultra rich colours and razor sharp image quality. It comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection to resist scratches and fingerprints. The main attraction of the G4 is the support for LG G Pen Stylus which is designed to provide superior multitasking experience.

Inside, the smartphone carries a quad-core 1.5GHz Cortex-A53 processor and quad-core 2GHz Cortex A-57 processor, based on Qualcomm MSM8994 Snapdragon 810 chipset. It is aided by 4GB RAM and Adreno 330 GPU so that you don't have to compromise with performance. It runs on the latest Android v5.0 Lollipop OS.

Camera and Storage

The LG G4 flaunts a 16MP rear camera with laser autofocus, optical image stabilization, HDR, dual-tone flash, geo-tagging, face detection and dual-tone flash. It can shoot UHD videos at 30fps and 1,080p ones at 60fps. It is accompanied by a 5MP front snapper which can shoot 1,080p videos. It has 32GB of internal memory which can be expanded up to 128GB.

Battery and Connectivity

The LG G4 is fuelled by a 3,000mAh Li-ion battery and can be connected via 4G(selected markets), 3G, Wi-Fi dual band, USB port, Infrared port, NFC, DLNA, GPS/A-GPS, USB Host, Bluetooth v4.0 and Mobile hotspot.

The all new LG G4, specs and key features 

Price:
(Expected)
Rs_49,990
General 

Operating System	Android v5.1 (Lollipop)
SIM Slot(s)	Single SIM, GSM
SIM Size	Nano
Box Contents	Handset, Battery, Charger, User Manual, Warranty Card

Storage 

Internal Memory	32 GB
External Memory	Yes, Up to 128 GB

Performance 

Processor	1.8 GHz, Hexa Core, Qualcomm MSM8992 Snapdragon 808
RAM	3 GB

Display 

Screen Size	5.5 Inch
Screen Resolution	1440 x 2560 pixels
Pixel Density	534 ppi
Display Type	IPS LCD

Camera 

Main Camera	Yes, 16 MP
Front Camera	Yes, 8 MP
Flash	Dual-color LED
Video Recording	4k @ 30 FPS, Full HD @ 60 FPS, High Dynamic Range mode (HDR), Optical image stabilization, Stereo sound recording
Zoom	Yes, Digital Zoom
Camera Features	AF Phase Detection, Exposure compensation, Face detection, Geo tagging, High Dynamic Range mode (HDR), ISO control, Laser Manual focus, Optical image stabilization, Simultaneous HD video and image recording, White balance presets

Battery 

Capacity	3000 mAH, Li-ion

Connectivity

Operating Frequency	GSM 1800 / 1900 / 850 / 900 MHz / UMTS 1900 / 2100 / 850 / 900 MHz
GPRS	Yes
EDGE	Yes
3G	Yes, LTE, HSDPA, HSUPA
4G	Yes (doesn't support Indian bands)
Wi-Fi	Yes, Wi-Fi 802.11, a/ac/b/g/n, Mobile Hotspot, Wi-Fi Direct
Bluetooth	Yes, v4.1, A2DP
GPS	Yes, with A-GPS, Glonass, GPS
USB Connectivity	Yes, USB Port, microUSB 2.0, HDMI Port, Micro HDMI (Type D)
More Connectivity	Computer sync, DLNA, NFC, OTA sync, Micro HDMI (Type D)

Design

Touch Screen	Yes, Capacitive Touchscreen, Multi-touch
Weight	155 grams
Dimensions	148.9 x 76.1 x 9.8 mm
Colors	Gold, Gray, White

Features

Sensors	Accelerometer, Barometer, Compass, Gyroscope, Proximity sensor
Games	Yes
Java	Yes, MIDP 1.0
Browser	Yes, HTML
Phone Book	Yes, Practically Unlimited
Other Facilities	Android Market, Calculator, World clock, Calendar, Alarm, Document viewer
Email	Yes
Instant Messaging	Yes

Multimedia

Video Player	Yes, Video Formats: MPEG4
Ring Tone	Music ringtones, Polyphonic ringtones, Vibration
Music	Yes, Music Formats: MP3
FM Radio	Yes, RDS, Stereo FM
Loudspeaker	Yes
Audio Jack	3.5 mm

LG’s G4 Flagship Smartphone Begins To Go On Sale Worldwide

LG revealed the G4, its newest flagship device, in April, and now the 5.5-inch screen device isrolling out for sale across the world.

Already on sale in its native Korea first, of course, the G4 will land in Hong Kong, before coming to Turkey, Russia and Singapore. Thereafter, LG said the phone will hit “most of Europe, North America, CIS, Southeast Asia, Middle East/Africa and South/Central America” over the next month — although it didn’t provide more specific timing for those releases.

President and CEO of LG Mobile, Juno Cho, said in a statement that the G4 is “unlike any other flagship mobile phone on the market today.” While today’s smartphones are becoming fairly commoditized in terms of features, there’s plenty to be optimistic about with LG’s latest offering.

The screen uses new “quantum display” tech, which apparently makes for better color reproduction, there’s a redesigned camera which now sports a larger sensor — a 16-megapixel rear camera and eight-megapixel front camera — and a 64-bit hexacore CPU Snapdragon 808 processor to power the show.

Added to that, the G4 includes a hand-crafted leather back, and subtle curve for improved feel in the hand. On the software side, there are some nice tweaks for serial Android owners — Google’s productivity apps come pre-installed, Chrome is the default browser, and there’s Chromecast support baked right in.

All of that leaves just one more question: what price? The price will vary worldwide, LG said, but early reports suggest it will retail for around $600 without a contract, or near $200 as part of a U.S. carrier deal.

That comes in around the same price as Samsung’s Galaxy S6, while the Galaxy S6 Edge is around $100 more expensive. These three are certainly the Android phones to watch this year, so far (considering Xiaomi continues to operate in Asia only) — however Apple’s larger iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+ are increasingly appealing to new audiences and have won the U.S. firm additional marketshare, particularly in China and other parts of Asia.