Technology Android

ARon

Well-Known Member
BGR is trash. I used to visit that site a lot and even had an RSS feed from them but they sucked on Apple's dick so much, even I got tired and realized the journalism was really biased.

I've stuck to The Verge for simple analysis and then Anandtech and sometimes Tom's for in depth analysis that confuses the shit out of me.

Ars Technica is alright too. But I thought Engadger and Giz lost their appeal in 2007, or so, when they had some questionable journalism. I don't remember what, but everyone moving away from it was my trigger to do the same as well.


I read them all. I just googled htc one reviews and those were some of the first, and most popular
 

Casey

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Any thoughts on whether there will be a second gen Chromecast device? The RAM seems a bit limited and how would the apps run smoothly if the RAM is so limited?

Apps don't actually run ON the Chromecast. They run on your phone/tablet/computer, and send a signal to the Chromecast to start streaming the content. The Chromecast doesn't require high spec internals because it doesn't do any heavy lifting. It just accepts incoming messages and connects to to a wifi network.

That said, at some point there will obviously be a refresh, and they may give it more capabilities. But right now in terms of software, the Chromecast has only seen a mere fraction of it's potential. Now that the SDK is out, we should see all sorts of interesting apps popping up over the next few months.

I would expect they will release it internationally soon, and then start to consider a hardware refresh towards the end of the year, perhaps.
 

masta247

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Sucks to be outside the US if you're a tech fan. Getting all this shit months later.

Actually it sucks to be in the US as far as some technology goes. Especially the US carriers suck. You're getting inferior and bloated versions of phones a lot. Also, lots of phones land in the US late, such as from Sony or LG, although even Samsung phones often come out there late.

The US is good for lots of niche things though, especially when big American companies release products that they don't think will sell good - so they mostly release them on their local market and not much elsewhere. I wish we had Google Play store for hardware though. No way to even get a Nexus outside the US and maybe 4 or 5 other countries. It's like Google don't even care about making it sell. Even though the Nexus series became righfully recognized outside of the hardcore geek circle, their availability is still limited to a few local markets.

To prove the point the Nexus 4 sold like 1 million units globally. Samsung was selling more Galaxy S4 units in a day, lol.

Snapdragon 800 is the premier chip at the moment. Now samsung might use their 8 core chip but from what i've read all performance will be comparable to the 800 and vice versa. Plus phone performance is at a point where it doesn't really matter if they get even more performance cus they are crazy fast enough as it is. I don't think we will see a true 4k display on a flagship til later this year so I think the 1080p is fine. I don't think people are looking forward to it either just because it's not made by samsung. Despite the camera, it is a better phone than anything samsung offered last year. Samsung and Apple run the phone game cus of branding not because they put out the best product. Samsung makes great phones, they really do, but every once in a while HTC or LG or whoever do make something better, I think that was the case with the One. With that being said I expect something great from the m8, and I expect it to be better than the s5 unless they are changing a lot about the phone
I don't mind the HTC One's design and I think it looked pretty good for its time, but now it looks dated with the big ass bezels. I thought it will be a problem once it came out since it was already quite big for its screen size.
I think it only sold well in the US and UK because of that design sense there judging by the reviews from American sites.
Not many of them in other places of Europe and they're virtually absent in Asia, even though it's a Taiwanese phone.

Snapdragon 800 is the chipset that is currently being replaced by the 805 which packs an updated and more optimized Krait core and most of all a GPU pushing up to 4 times more particles per second compared to Snapdragon 800.

The One was a little bit inferior to the S4 in about everything, that's a fact, even if it was the second best for a while. We're not going to see 4K displays, but this is a year of 2K displays on flagship smartphones, and Snapdragon 805/Tegra K1. Launching a phone for 2014 with 2013 specs is just suicide, and it might be the last nail to HTC's coffin.

About LG I agree, the G2 is a great phone that I'd recommend as one of the best Android smartphones at the moment. But the new HTC phone is going to be at best on par with the G2..! There's no way it's going to come anywhere close to competing with the S5 if the leaks are true. As a matter of fact, it's going to compete with the updated S4 with S800.
 

ARon

Well-Known Member
You realize the M8 will be out before all of that, plus I think HTC looked at what moto did with the moto x. Not the best specs but it's selling well. They're trying to save themselves in a ok fashion, i give them a little credit.



I don't want to say it will be out first, but hte phone has been made
 

masta247

Well-Known Member
Staff member
You realize the M8 will be out before all of that, plus I think HTC looked at what moto did with the moto x. Not the best specs but it's selling well. They're trying to save themselves in a ok fashion, i give them a little credit.

The Moto X is not selling well at all. As a matter of fact, sales were very poor, and rightfully - it was one of the poorest value for money smartphones.
http://www.phonearena.com/news/WSJ-Motorola-Moto-X-sales-disappointing_id49251

Sony will announce a 2K phone at the MWC, Samsung is said to announce the S5 at the same conference as well, same with LG's G2 Pro. So does HTC. I don't think they stand any chance, really. HTC pulled the plug with the updates to all phones that came out prior to the HTC One, they're selling average phones in the same price range as top tier flagships and I hardly see any reason to buy a phone from them unless they really step their game up before going bankrupt, which they might no longer have enough resources to pull off.
 

Pittsey

Knock, Knock...
Staff member
Sucks to be outside the US if you're a tech fan. Getting all this shit months later.


What shit? Myself and Casey have the Chromecast. You don't...! lol ;)

I remember when Nokia were the main players in phones. The USA got phones well over a year later than the UK. Now that was crazy/. For the most part, we get tech at the same time. Although our phones are far more subsidised and the packages a lot cheaper, too.
 

Casey

Well-Known Member
Staff member
the packages a lot cheaper, too.
Exactly. £12/month contract on Three network gets me 200 minutes, 5000 texts and unlimited 4G data, with FREE international roaming in the USA, Austria, Australia, Denmark, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Italy, Macau, Ireland, Sri Lanka and Sweden.

There's no plans in the US that even come close to being that good.
 

masta247

Well-Known Member
Staff member
The new S4's are going to have leather backs and Snapdragon 800s at 2,5ghz and they're sexy as hell. As a side note it makes me wonder what the S5 is going to pack. Obviously they wouldn't update the last year's model if they weren't confident the S5 will be so much more awesome.

The S5 mini benchmark leaked today, which is often mislabeled on news sites as "S5 benchmark leaked" lol. It's about as powerful as the new S4 and packs a 16mpx camera and a 480ppi which is 1080p on about 4,5 inch display. Snapdragon 800 at 2,5ghz as well.
It also points to the fact that Samsung made the S5 leaner - the S5 mini will not have some sensors that are required by Samsung's apps that came with S4's Touchwiz - such as S Health.

The new S4s:

 

Pittsey

Knock, Knock...
Staff member
For anyone that is interested... A Chromecast can not play video/audio from a browser that uses a quicktime or silverlight plugin.
 

THEV1LL4N

Well-Known Member
Most shit can be imported these days. Most people have friends or family that can send them stuff.

Thanks for clarifying that for me, Casey. That would make sense as the content is, of course, 'casted' to the Chromecast device.

I'm not sure about getting one imported as much of the content would be US-only and things like BBC iPlayer and UK services may be limited.
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/features/digital-home/3465401/google-chromecast-release-date-price-uk/

Should I buy an imported Chromecast?

Today, you can buy a Chromecast from ebay, but you'll pay around £60 - or more - due to shipping charges and import taxes from the US. And these American models are set up to work with US streaming services which may not work in the UK. We've confirmed that YouTube, Netflix, Play Movies & TV and Play Music work in the UK, but you won't find UK catchup TV services.
There's also a risk that a US Chromecast may not have the same firmware as UK models, or that it might not be possible to load a UK firmware on a US model, meaning you'd be stuck with the selection of streaming providers available to US users, and not get access to iPlayer or other UK services.
A minor point is that the US Chromecast doesn't work (according to some reviews) on Wi-Fi channels 12 or 13. If your router uses these channels, you would have to manually change the channel to make it work with a Chromecast. See also: How to switch Wi-Fi channels.

Just being a bit cautious.
 

Pittsey

Knock, Knock...
Staff member
I bought mine from Amazon UK. I paid less than £30.

I had no problems with it at all. I have been using it a lot, to try it out. I want to see what new apps pop up from the SDK release. Then... I will be selling it. As I already have an i5 M90 SFFC under my TV.
 

masta247

Well-Known Member
Staff member
No it's not the S5. Not any "s" version as well. It's the updated S4, I guess because people liked the leather on the Note 3. Everything is just like on the S4, but instead of shiny plastic on the back there's leather.
The S5 is coming soon and will probably look entirely different.

As a matter of fact what I plan to do is.. just buy that leather back cover for my S4, lol.
 

Pittsey

Knock, Knock...
Staff member
No it's not the S5. Not any "s" version as well. It's the updated S4, I guess because people liked the leather on the Note 3. Everything is just like on the S4, but instead of shiny plastic on the back there's leather.
The S5 is coming soon and will probably look entirely different.

As a matter of fact what I plan to do is.. just buy that leather back cover for my S4, lol.

Ah... I didn't know if you were writing plural or 4S. :)
 

Latest posts

Donate

Any donations will be used to help pay for the site costs, and anything donated above will be donated to C-Dub's son on behalf of this community.

Members online

No members online now.
Top