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Neptune Pine “smartwatch” ships to backers, gets rooted

Proving that Kickstarter dreams do come true, the Neptune Pine smartwatch, if you can really call it that, is now landing in some backers' hands. Or in this case, wrists. Now all that's left is to see whether this smartphone-on-you-wrist will be able to deliver all, if not most, of its promises to make wearing this really big removable smartwatch well worth your while.



Despite the almost ridiculous looking size of this device, the Neptune Pine's goal is both simple and admittedly appealing: put all the functionality of your smartphone in your watch, no holds barred. No limited Tizen or toned down Android Wear. You've got it all, packed in a pager-sized box that you can also detach from the strap to use as a regular, albeit tiny, smartphone. Despite naysayers scoffing at both concept and design, the Kickstarter campaign was able to net more than 2,800 backers and eight times its $100,000 funding goal. And now, it is shipping out to prove those disbelievers wrong. At least in theory.


Some backers have already received their units and, unsurprisingly, there's already a root method and a way to install Google Play services on the smartwatch. The Neptune Pine would not, of course, meet Google's certification requirements so it doesn't have access to Google Play. No problem with Android vibrant and sometimes overzealous community. A method now exists to be able to install that, commonly known as gapps in the ROM world, on the smartwatch, opening the doors to even more apps and features. There is also a rooting method, but that is separate and independent from flashing gapps.


The Neptune Pine is like the anti-thesis to the now established notion of a smartwatch, putting everything including the kitchen sink into a package that's half watch, half smartphone. Given how limited the Neptune Pine is in terms of retail numbers, at least compared to the strengths of the likes of LG and Samsung, it will be hard to tell if this indie smartwatch was right all along. Are you one of the believers who have put their money down for the Neptune Pine? Have you already gotten yours and how are you finding it? Let us know! In case you're now interested in actually buying the device, you can still put in a pre-order of $349 for 16 GB of storage or $449 for 32 GB.


SOURCE: Neptune Pine Ninja

VIA: SlashGear





Battery test shows T-Mobile devices last longer than rivals

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s got the longest battery life of them all? When it comes to Android devices of the Top 4 carriers in the US, the winner seems to be T-Mobile. The test was conducted using the Android app Laptop Mag Battery Test and used four smartphones from Samsung and HTC, one each from the top carriers. The conclusion is that the devices from T-Mobile have the longest average battery life among all those tested.



The four phones involved in the test are the Samsung Galaxy S5, Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One M7, and HTC One M8. Each phone, using the app, went through 50 popular websites and stayed for 60 seconds each site, until the batteries ran out. The WiFi was turned off so that the smartphones had to solely depend on the carrier’s network. Bluetooth and NFC were also turned off, and all phones were set at 150 nits for brightness, to be fair to all gadgets involved. They also tried to make sure that each phone had at least 3 bars of service from their carrier.


For all four smartphones, T-Mobile was way ahead of its competitors, with most of them lasting an hour (or more) less. For example, with the Samsung Galaxy S5, the T-Mobile phone lasted for about 10:57 hours, which was an hour longer than AT&T which was at 9:28 and Verizon was way below at 7:30. The same was also true for the other three devices. This has been going on for the past 3 years, and in just the past 12 months, T-Mobile devices had an average of 8 hours 11 minutes, while all the other 3 had an average of one hour less.


past_months_121 htc_m7_battery_comparison galaxy_s4_battery_compariso1 htc_m8_battery_comparison s5_battery_comparison


What is T-Mobile doing to “prolong” the battery life of their smartphones? Their official statement is that they work with the OEMs to identify which of the functions have the largest effect on battery life and then they "reduce the background process that impacts overall performance.” (whatever that means exactly). It could also be that their network has a more efficient process of sending and receiving data. Another reason may be they have less users on their LTE Network, but of course that is something they would not want to brag about.


SOURCE: Laptop Mag


LG G3 Stylus likely a qHD 5.7-inch smartphone

This week LG has “accidentally” leaked its next phablet in a G3 Beat promo video. While there wasn’t much details about the G3 Stylus except a stylus pen integration, there are now pieces of info from several sources.



Instead of high end specs, the LG G3 Stylus seems to be not a direct Samsung Galaxy Note series competitor. According to an import-export tracker Zauba, it will come with a 5.7-inch display screen in 720p resolution and powered by a unspecified 1.3GHz quad core processor. The mid-range G3 Stylus is also listed with a 1GB RAM, 8GB internal storage, 8 megapixel camera and 1.3 megapixel front facing camera.


Another user agent profile has indicated a different screen resolution though. The profile list on LG website indicates a qHD (540 x 960) resolution, which might not be ideal for a 5.7-inch size.


lg-g3-stylus-2


LG G3 Stylus leaked specifications list:


- Model: LG D690N

- Android 4.4.x KitKat

- 1.3 GHz quad core processor

- 5.7-inch IPS LCD with HD or qHD resolution

- 1GB RAM / 8GB ROM

- 8 megapixel camera

- 1.3 megapixel front facing

- Support LTE


This is not the first time LG has a stylus with its Android smartphone. Its Optimus Vu series have been bundled with a stylus pen, although the stylus pen has to be kept separately as there is no built in pen slot in the phone. My LG Phones is told that there won’t be a new Vu successor this year, instead, the Vu series will be replaced by G3 Stylus in the future.


Unfortunately, there is no news for the official announcement date. We might probably see it during the IFA 2014 trade show, which takes place in Berlin next month from 5th to 10 September. Samsung, Sony and Huawei are expected to announce new phones with Galaxy Note 4, Xperia Z3 and possibly Huawei Ascend Mate 3.


VIA: GSMArena





Google updates: YouTube playlists, Music widgets, Search deep links

It's that time of week again and, while last week as quite a no show, Google is pushing out a few updates to its Android apps this time. In this round, we're seeing a bunch of minor changes to YouTube's playlist handling and Play Music's home screen widgets. Plus, Google Search gets bumped up to 3.6, brining in in-app indexing support.



In-app search via the Google Search app has been a long time coming. Revealed late last year, the feature shows users search results that include information found inside apps. All the user needs to do is tap away and they will be taken directly to that app's contents. Initially available only to a few select apps, Google opened the doors to all developers in July. However, it is only this new version 3.6 of the Search app that those results will be shown via search autocompletion.


YouTube has gotten a very minor facelift as far as its menus are concerned, in particular those related to Playlist management. In the sidebar navigation menu, there is now a "View All" option that will take you to your full roster of playlists. The individual playlist pages have also seen a very minor modification, swapping out the "thumbs up" icon, which is of course more associated with Facebook, with a more ambiguous plus icon, which has the same function but might be mistaken for an "add" action.


Google Play Music was also touched up a bit, with the "Download Queue" area relabeled as a more meaningful "Manage Downloads". Bulk of the changes, however, can be found not in the app itself but in its widgets, with a new 1x1 "I'm feeling lucky" widget, that uses a dice icon and animation for added visual emphasis, and a 3x1 white colored widget that can be resized up to 4x4.


As always, distribution of these app updates take time and are dependent on the region. So best seat tight and wait for it to come if any of those new features tickle your fancy.


VIA: XDA, Android Police (1), (2)





Facebook Messenger v9 has voice reply for Android Wear

There may only be two smartwatches in the market (will turn 3 once Motorola launches its Moto 360) running on Android Wear right now, but that hasn’t stopped several apps from adding features to support the platform. Probably this is due to the fact that they expect it to explode in the next few months or years. The new version of Facebook Messenger, v9, now has the capability of replying to your messages by speaking into your smartwatch.



The new version of the FB messenger lets you voice reply to any conversation on the app, if you have a Samsung Gear Live or an LG G3 that is. If you’re on the go and too busy to type out a reply to your FB messages on your smartphone, then all you have to do is have the FB messenger app open on your smartwatch and use the voice reply option. Or if you’re really pressed for time (or are too lazy) but you need to send some kind of reaction, then you can now send a thumbs up through your Android Wear device. Another helpful new feature is the ability to mute notifications on your smartwatch or your mobile device.


Other than the new Android Wear support, there is not much updates for normal mobile users of the FB Messenger app, except for supposed "improvements to make the app faster and more reliable”. Just last week, Facebook announced it is removing the messenger features from the main app, slowly forcing users to migrate to the stand-alone Messenger app if they want to continue using the service.


While the app has seen a lot of improvements from its previous incarnations, there is still a lot of resistance to this major change, since some users just want one Facebook app instead of several separate ones, plus the chat heads can be kind of annoying. If you want to check out what the fuss is about (and if you already have or are planning to buy an Android Wear smartwatch), you can download the Messenger for free from the Google Play Store.


SOURCE: Ian Lake





BLU Studio C series brings a splash of color to budget line

BLU Products is at it again. The US-based maker of unlocked smartphones is debuting some new devices and it isn't content with just one or two. It's new "Studio C" smartphone series is composed of four, yes, four, smartphones that all have three things in common: they're mid-range, dirt cheap and extremely colorful. Oh, and they fortunately all run Android 4.4 KitKat.



The four smartphones can be grouped into two based on their processors. At the top, you have the Studio 5.0 C HD and the Studio C Mini, both running on the same 1.3 GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6582 CPU. As you can probably guess, the Studio 5.0 C HD stands still higher. And larger. It has a 5.0-inch display that manages to reach at least a resolution of 1080x720 pixels. It has 1 GB of RAM but only 4 GB of storage. An 8 megapixel camera decks the rear while a 2 megapixel one is located at the front.


BLU Products Studio 5 C HD BLU Products Studio 5 C HD BLU Products Studio 5 C HD


The Studio C Mini is indeed smaller and weaker with only 512 MB of RAM and a 4.7-inch 800x480 display. It has the same internal storage of 4 GB as the 5.0 C HD and, like its bigger sibling, it has a slot for a microSD card up to 64 GB in capacity. The camera at the back only has 5 megapixels, but the front-facing shooter is at the same 2 megapixels.


BLU Products Studio C Mini BLU Products Studio C Mini BLU Products Studio C Mini


Going down further we get to the other pair, the Studio 5.0 C and the Studio 5.0 CE, both running on a 1.3 GHz dual, not quad, core MediaTek CPU and limited to only 512 MB of RAM, Clearly the lower range of the series. That said the 5.0-inch display on both devices sports the exact same 854x480, a bit higher than the C Mini. Storage is also capped at 4 GB with a microSD card slot, but this time limited only to 32 GB max. Both have front VGA cameras but the Studio 5.0 C has a slightly higher 5 megapixel shooter while the 5.0 CE only has 3.2. Aside from these the most striking difference between the two is that the BLU Studio 5.0 CE doesn't have any 3G support, while all the rest of the family have. Unsurprisingly, no 4G LTE on any of the four.


BLU Products Studio 5 C BLU Products Studio 5 C BLU Products Studio 5 C


Confused by all the details? The table below lays out all the features of the four Studio C series smartphones.



blu-studio-c-series-table



Both the BLU Studio 5.0 C HD and the Studio C Mini are now available from Amazon and various retailers with a price tag of $149 for the HD model and $119 for the mini. The other two won't be coming until later this month but they will naturally carry much lower price tags, with the Studio 5.0 C costing $109 and the Studio 5.0 CE only a measly $89.


SOURCE: BLU Products (Studio 5.0 C HD), (Studio C Mini), (Studio 5.0 C), (Studio 5.0 CE)





Pinterest introduces conversations, multiple recipients

While not as popular as other social networks like Facebook or Twitter, Pinterest is still considered a juggernaut with more than 70 million users and more than 2 million pins sent everyday. Now, they are making it even more personal as they introduce a few new features that can turn a pin into a conversation between you and a friend or a group chat to talk about a particular pin that you find useful or interesting.



Several months ago, Pinterest introduced the Send a Pin feature which allowed you to send pins to specific friend who you think would find a certain pin helpful. However, other than sending it to them, there wasn’t any kind of interaction between the friends and it was just a give and give relationship. But with the new feature, you and your friend can now talk about the wedding gown that you’re suggesting or the recipe that both of you want to try out. When you send a pin to your friend, a conversation bubble, which kind of looks like the FB chat head appears on the lower left-hand corner (for websites and tablets) or a separate dialogue screen (for smartphones). But if that annoys you or it covers your pins, you can easily get rid of the dialogue box.




Another interesting feature, particularly for friends who enjoy spewing ideas back and forth, is the ability to send pins and messages to more than one person. Family and friends can now collaborate on travel plans, creative pegs for projects or the menu for your next big get-together. Just simply keep on adding names from your contacts when you’re sending a pin.




But since Pinterest is not positioning itself as a messaging app, there are still limitations as to how this messaging feature works. For one, there isn’t a contact list like what you find in most apps like Line or Viber. Also, there isn’t a conversation or messages tab in the app or website and you can only retrieve your existing conversations from the notifications button. If you don’t have Pinterest yet on your device, you can download it from the Google Play Store.




SOURCE: Pinterest





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