Hasta La Gadget!

Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it’s easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don’t escape without notice, we’ve gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!

Continue reading Refresh Roundup: week of January 7th, 2013

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile

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Fitbit’s been in the fitness-tracking game for a while now, but today marks its first official entry into the wearable band space. Shown off here at CES 2013, the Flex is a wireless band much in the vein of Nike’s Fuelband and Jawbone’s rebooted Up. But while it shares many similarities with those existing products, there are a few very notable areas where it breaks apart from the pack– namely, the inclusion of Bluetooth 4.0. Now, health nuts can wirelessly update their stats to an iPhone or limited selection of Android (!) devices via that standard without having to manually sync.

While it doesn’t boast the Yves Behar design that Jawbone fancies, the Flex should prove to be a welcome accessory for fashion conscious consumers. To that end, it comes in five different colors — navy, black, tangerine, slate and teal — and features a thin strip of LEDs that can be activated by a simple tap. Those lights, five in total, each represent 20-percent towards a user’s assigned goal, so current progress can be easily monitored. And, as you might expect, there’s a vibration motor within the band to alert users based on settings made from the companion app.

The Flex is indeed a waterproof product and can be worn in the shower or even the swimming pool, though we wouldn’t advise you take it diving. Despite this H20 resistance, the Flex won’t track your butterfly strokes (or doggie paddles), but it will keep count of your steps, calories burned, sleep and distance walked.

Perhaps one of the most welcome innovations of this particular wearable is its ability to play friendly with Android — specifically, the Samsung Galaxy Note II and Galaxy S III. Users who purchase this band will be able to download that app from Google Play at the end of January. Further, there’s one additional perk for Android users: the ability to tap-to-pair with NFC. In theory, this functionality should provide users with easy access to their stats, but we (in addition to the company’s many reps) had significant trouble triggering the action on repeated occasions.

If you’ve been monitoring the fitness-tracking space, but have been holding out for a band that offers just a little extra, then it’s worth considering the Flex. You can look for it to hit this spring for $100. Stay tuned for a video demo of the Flex in action.

Sarah Silbert contributed to this report.

Continue reading Fitbit Flex hands-on at CES 2013 (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Wearables, Wireless

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If you own a Galaxy S III that appears to have suffered some form of cardiac arrest, failing suddenly for no apparent reason, Samsung is aware of the problem, and is working on a fix. The issue, being referred to in the forums as “sudden death,” seems to be relatively rare: a Samsung spokeswoman told Tweakers that the problem affects “only a very limited number” of devices. So far, we know the problem applies to users running the stock software, as well as custom ROMs. For whatever reason, too, these defective models are all 16GB variants, according to Samsung. In any case, Sammy says it will push out a firmware update to correct the problem, though the company hasn’t said when that patch will be ready.

[Thanks, Zhewei]

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung

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Via: SamMobile

Source: Tweakers

If you cherish saving coin and don’t mind owning secondhand devices, Vodafone’s Nearly New program is angling to hook you up with previously-loved smartphones. The UK firm’s new effort takes handsets returned by users in “very good condition,” repackages them with the appropriate accessories and doles them out at cheaper prices with pay-as-you-go or contract plans. According to Vodafone, the offering is particularly aimed at bringing pay-as-you-go users into the smartphone fold without breaking the bank. Available devices will vary each month based on return inventory, but the outfit already has iOS and Android choices on tap. Customers happy with off-contract service can choose between an iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4, with an 8GB flavor of the latter ringing up at £250. Folks who have their eye on a contract plan can pick between a Samsung Galaxy S III, which is free with a £33 subscription, or an HTC One X. On-contract Nearly New devices are already available online and in select stores, while commitment-free phones are up for grabs in-store and will find their way online next week.

Filed under: Mobile

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Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it’s easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don’t escape without notice, we’ve gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!

Continue reading Refresh Roundup: week of December 3rd, 2012

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile

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