Verizon subscribers, we hope your device habits don’t revolve too closely around that 20-month upgrade cycle: it’s about to get longer. Big Red has confirmed that upgrade eligibility will now start only after the two-year contract is up. Those who have an existing contract that expires in January 2014 or later will have to wait four more months before they can get hardware at a discounted rate. Ostensibly, the shift is to let customers count on a lone upgrade date for all of their connected devices, but let’s not beat around the bush: the longer intervals are bad for any subscriber whose desire for a new phone or tablet doesn’t perfectly dovetail with their contract length.
There are a few other changes afoot. Those on multi-line accounts can still share their upgrades as long as it’s within the same device category, but they won’t have the option to transfer a hotspot or tablet upgrade. It won’t be as easy to upgrade to that Galaxy Note 10.1, unfortunately. Likewise, anyone who’s been hoarding New Every Two upgrades since the program ended in 2011 may want to use them this weekend — the credits expire on April 15th. While these last two changes won’t affect as many of us, they reinforce the notion that Verizon would really prefer that we hold on to the gear we’ve got.
If you compare mobile plans in the US to mobile plans available in the UK, it’s clear that most of the time mobile phone users in the UK are able to get much better deals. UK carrier O2 has announced a new tariff that promises to allow customers to get the latest phone whenever they want. That means there’s no more worrying that when you buy that new Android device, something better will launch six months down the road.
O2′s new tariff is called O2 Refresh and is a 24-month tariff that removes the cost of the phone from the cost of calls, text messages, and data. When you decide you want to upgrade to a new phone on this plan you don’t have to buy out your current airtime contract. All the user has to do is pay the remaining balance left on their current phone, then get a new phone, and start the process over.
Refresh allows the user to choose their own plan and airtime plan and pay for those separately from the mobile phone itself. O2 says that Refresh allows the user to pay the same price overall as they would on a standard 24 month Pay Monthly tariff. However, when the user decides to upgrade they only have to pay off the Phone Plan and the Air Time Plan ends with no termination fee.
Users will also be able to sell their current phone back to the carrier using the O2 Recycle plan and get up to £260 towards another phone. For users who choose Refresh and don’t purchase a new mobile phone frequently, once the Phone Plan balance is paid down, the monthly payments will reduce dramatically with the user only paying for the Airtime Plan.
There are several Refresh Airtime Plans ranging in price from £12 monthly for 600 min. of talk, unlimited texting, and 750 MB of data, to a £22 monthly plan offers unlimited talk, unlimited text, and 2 GB. O2 isn’t the first wireless company in the UK to try this sort of plan, Phones 4U unveiled a similar plan in February.
We have talked about the interesting little Breathometer a couple times in the past. This device is the world’s first smartphone breathalyzer. The idea is that when people go out to eat and drink with their friends, they can take the Breathometer with them and use it to determine if they’ve had too much to drink.
The last time we talked about the little device it had raised a little bit over $80,000 and had another 18 days to go. The campaign now has only 48 hours left and will fund on Saturday, 13 April. So far, the project has raised $131,011. That means it raised enough money to get one of the stretch goals added to encourage additional pledges.
At $100,000, the people behind the Breathometer project promised to add what they call a safety net. That safety net creates a one-click calling feature for friends and local taxi services. I can see that being useful if someone is too intoxicated to work the numbers on their smartphone.
With a couple days left in the program, there is a chance he could reach the $150,000 level, which will add four additional colors to the mix. At $200,000, the developers of the project promised to add a feature to help stop drunk texting. You can still pledge $100 and get your own Breathometer by July 2013. If you’re in no hurry, a pledge of $20 will get you one devices by January 2014. The project was originally seeking $25,000.
Last year Verizon and LG partnered up to offer an inexpensive smartphone in the LG Lucid with 4G LTE, and now a year later we have the new and improved LG Lucid 2 on the SlashGear review bench. Today we’ll be taking a look at LG’s latest budget friendly 4G LTE packing smartphone over on Verizon Wireless. It’s absolutely free on contract from Big Red and runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and more so read on to see if it’s worth it – even for a freebie.
This brand new device was released on Verizon Wireless earlier this week and we’ve been putting it through the paces. It certainly isn’t a Galaxy S III or iPhone 5, but LG and Verizon are aiming for a more budget friendly crowd. Or someone that is fairly new to smartphones. You’ll be working with a decent mid-sized run of the mill 4.3-inch smartphone with some decent specs, but it’s the price point of free that is important here. Lets take a look.
Hardware
The LG Lucid 2 certainly doesn’t win any design awards, nor does it come with durable aluminum materials like the HTC One, however it does feel nice in the hand. It’s sized right, lightweight, yet still fairly durable. All things a first-time smartphone buyer might want. So what’s under the hood and how does it stack up? Here’s how!
The Lucid 2 comes with an average 4.3-inch qHD 960 x 540 resolution IPS display. It doesn’t look bad, but could certainly be better with most mid-range phones lately being at least 720p HD. Screen resolution aside this has all the makings to be a pretty stellar smartphone. Under the hood is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 1.2 GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM. LG’s added 8GB of internal storage along with a micro SD slot for expanding storage, and we get a pair of decent cameras. On the rear is 5 megapixels, and VGA up front should do okay for the average Skype call or Google+ Hangout.
As you can see from the gallery, it isn’t the thinnest smartphone but then again we did have the wireless charging cover on back which added about 4mm to the thickness. One important aspect to the size is the fact that we still get an impressive 2,460 mAh battery in such a small device. Add that to a smaller screen than most that isn’t HD, and only a dual-core processor and this thing lasts longer than most. In fact we’ve been able to go nearly 30 hours on a single charge with moderate use.
Sadly as far as hardware is concerned the device certainly doesn’t impress. It’s lightweight which is nice, but it also feels extremely cheap. The terrible plastics are not a favorite of ours, and they are even cheaper than most we’ve seen in the mobile space as of late. The bezels around the screen aren’t too big, and the capacitive touch Jelly Bean buttons were nice and responsive. We’d like the backlit keys to stay bright longer, as guessing got old very fast. In closing the hardware certainly isn’t the best around, but for being absolutely free we really can’t argue. Or knock too many points for it being cheap plastic, a lower resolution display, and only a 5 megapixel camera. Check it out in detail below:
Software
As you saw above, we are clearly working with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean but it has been covered with LG’s take on an Android skin. It’s not our favorite, but then it isn’t as intrusive as something like Sense UI. The animations are smooth, neat, and extremely fast – so we can’t really knock it. LG’s made a few tweaks we’ve seen lately and nothing here is really new. They have a few theme options to change the look and feel with ease, and even offer what they call a “starter mode” where the phone will get dumb-down for a first-time smartphone user.
Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean is extremely responsive with the dual-core processor, and LG’s software doesn’t seem to slow down performance. We enjoyed using things like Google Now voice search with Jelly Bean, and the expandable notifications are nice. Sadly LG’s pulldown bar is a mess. The WiFi button you see in the screenshots only wastes valuable pulldown bar space and we can’t get rid of it. We don’t need to see a massive box with our WiFi name Okay LG. The quick toggles in the notification bar were customizable, so that was good. And the screen brightness quick option is a nice touch too.
We had a little more bloatware than we’d like but that’s because Verizon has their own, and recently they’ve been adding Amazon’s suite too. Add those to the extra and not all that needed LG apps and we have a full 3 pages of apps out of the box. More than any first time buyer would need, to say the least.
Performance was swift thanks to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and project butter, and the animations were extremely quick making the entire device just feel fast and fluid. LG’s main issue lately has been with somewhat buggy software, and the lack of updates. As long as this continues to get a few updates in the future to Key Lime Pie and beyond we’ll be happy.
Benchmarks
As usual we had to run a few benchmarks just to see how the phone and that dual-core processor handled some daily tasks. As we mentioned above the entire device feels fast and flies during average tasks, so take these as you will. It holds its own quite well thanks to the Snapdragon S4 under the hood and 1GB of RAM. So we’ll take it.
Camera & Phone
The Lucid 2 comes with an average 5 megapixel camera but it was up to the job for those usual Facebook or Google+ photos. Video recording is only 720p, but that was to be expected. Thankfully the shutter speed and camera interface is much better than the original Lucid, and you’ll be snapping Facebook-worthy pictures in seconds. Here’s a few indoors, as well as outdoors for good measure. Good enough right? Hey the phone is free!
As far as a “Phone” is concerned, the Lucid 2 does great. The actual call quality is great thanks to Verizon, and the speakerphone was louder than many devices we’ve used in the past. Sadly 4G LTE seemed to be a little choppy in an otherwise stable locations, but we’ll check with Verizon and get back to you on that. LTE dropped often and would default to 3G, then our data speeds for YouTube and browsing the web suffered. For most this shouldn’t be an issue however.
Battery Life
As we stated above, the LG Lucid 2 happily comes with a larger than average battery given the size of the smartphone. LG paired a quality 2,460 mAh battery under the hood of this mid-range phone and it lasts far longer than many. We managed nearly 30 hours of battery on a single charge with minimal usage, and with heavy gaming and some web-browsing over WiFi it still lasted from morning til night. We didn’t need to plug it in overnight either, that’s the biggie. You won’t be crying if you forget to charge your phone during the wee hours of the night.
LG’s software tweaks really made showing the battery life a task, as the image above shows the battery drain at 21 hours, and that went all the way down to 10% after about 25 hours. Usually stock Android has a great battery stat page, but LG decided to make it a bit complicated. That aside because it doesn’t matter, battery life is stellar on the LG Lucid 2. Certainly the best for a budget phone, considering the RAZR M only has a 2,000 mAh battery and nearly the same specs.
Accessories
With the LG Lucid 2 being free with a new 2-year contract, Verizon has a few accessories they’ll want you to buy while you are in the store. One that is a pretty decent move considering you’re walking out not paying a cent is the wireless charger options. Using what LG calls the “world’s smallest” wireless charger to drop it and go for only $39.99. This charger is made of the same extremely cheap plastic materials, but has a nice durable set of feet so it won’t slide around. Simple drop your Lucid 2 on it smack-dab in the middle and it will instantly start charging. It has a nice notification LED too.
Then LG’s also included in Verizon stores a wireless charging dock and spare battery charger. The dock pictured above sadly doesn’t have audio out or anything of that nature, but will put your Lucid 2 in a nice landscape mode while you sleep. It also doubles as a charger and conveniently comes with a spare battery that will also charge up all night. So basically LG has battery life completely covered with the Lucid 2.
Wrap-Up
LG has done a rather fine job here in terms of what you get with the Lucid 2 for the price. The fact that they are offering a fairly decent mid-range phone (screen aside) completely free with a new 2-year contract is the selling point here. You get a powerful, capable, and up to date Android Jelly Bean smartphone all absolutely free. Then from there you can enjoy some wireless charging and spend that money on apps from the Play Store instead.
So in closing is the Lucid a device we’d recommend to someone who is considering the iPhone 5, Galaxy S III (or S4) or any other high end device? Nope! Nor does the device deserve any such sort of recommendation. What we will say is for a teenager or a first time smartphone buyer the Lucid 2 for free is a pretty good option, and something worth taking a look at in a store near you. Enjoy the rest of the photos below.
Travel back to the time of Mobile World Congress and you’ll surely recall the LG Optimus F7, a well-specced mid-tier smartphone that left us quite impressed. Now, @evleaks has shared a peek of the device that’s adorned with the Now Network’s branding, and if all goes according to plans, the serial leaker suggests the phone will soon hit Sprint-owned Boost Mobile. A few notable features of the Optimus F7 include a 4.7-inch True HD IPS display, a dual-core 1.5GHz CPU, an 8-megapixel primary camera, 2GB RAM and Android 4.1.2, which would pose a heavy challenge to Boost’s current premiere smartphone, the HTC One SV. Naturally, we’d certainly welcome the Optimus F7 on Sprint (and even Virgin Mobile), and given the Sprint Zone branding, we’ll remain cautiously hopeful that Dan Hesse is thinking the same.
It would appear that as Apple begins a move away from reliance on Samsung to create the most massive amount of its mobile products’ flash memory, the Korean company is seeking outside help to create enough product for its own Galaxy lineup. Two reports have surfaced today that suggest both Apple and Samsung to be seeking new means and ways of accessing enough product for the innards of their smartphone and tablet lineups. While Apple has bee reported to be teaming up with Taiwan Semiconductor on one hand, Samsung has been tipped to be purchasing memory from Elpida Memory and Toshiba.
The first report comes from EE Times where their “observers of the electronics and computer industries” – aka nameless sources – have said that Apple has “thrown out” their contract with Samsung for microprocessor manufacturing and is teaming up with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. for the immediate future. Apple’s next-generation A7 processor has also been rumored to have been taped out by this company already – that’s a few steps behind actual production!
Meanwhile Digitimes – a group we must remind you has been as reliable as unreliable with their sources in the past, but do have some top-level contacts that end up revealing valuable information rather often – suggest that Samsung is currently unable to fill even their own requirements for memory products. With their Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets pumping out sales like no tomorrow, this report suggests that they’ll be looking for help!
Samsung’s own supply of memory products is already falling short of demand, including that for its Galaxy-series smartphones and tablets, industry sources have claimed.
Also interesting is the added suggestion that Samsung isn’t using these purchased parts for their own Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets. Instead, this source suggests, Samsung is keeping its own production reserved for its own mobile products while the rest is shipped out to non-Samsung devices.
They noted that Samsung reportedly is buying more chips from Japanese firms while continuing to use its in-house produced chips for its Galaxy-series mobile devices. This is reportedly happening when Samsung has actually implemented a strategy to tightly control its chip output, the observers pointed out.
That’s a rather sizable claim to be making, and unless Samsung comes forth to say it’s true, we suggest you down a bit of salt while you think about it. If Samsung was indeed reserving its whole DRAM and NAND flash memory production for its own mobile products, notebooks, PCs, and the like, they’d have to integrate their whole business and depend solely on those mobile products to win. Samsung is simply too massive to do such a thing without some big-time decision-making being made.
Like sands in the hour glass, these are today’s Apple tips and leaks – starting with an analyst note passed on after a meeting with Apple executives, chock-full of suggestions for the future of the company. First off, it would appear that Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty has made it clear that Apple may be releasing a new “killer iOS app” later this year. Before we go any further, it’s important that we all pause and read the two most important words read thus far: analyst and “may”.
While there’s no reason to think Huberty didn’t meet with Apple executives recently, the fact that the notes she’s passed on are all tied to “could” and “is believed to” and “may” should give you a clue to how much was actually revealed to her. With that in mind, feel free to go wild with acceptance and faith in the possibilities!
“We believe Apple could charge either developers or users for some of these services, which could boost Apple’s annuitized revenue stream and better monetize its large user base. For example, Apple could offer a streaming music service using a freemium model.” – Huberty
You’ll find Apple being suggested to create an internet-based service the likes of which could be a music service by the name of “iRadio” and might be working on deals with Warner Music and Universal Music Group as we speak. Also suggested once again is the iPhone 5S along with distribution plans for NTT Docomo in Japan and China Mobile (in China).
The “killer iOS app” spoken about by Huberty has been described as quite possibly as important as Apple’s adoption of Siri with the iPhone 4S. This could be the introduction of mobile payments, integration being started already with the app Passbook brought fourth in iOS 5. Conflicting reports in the past have suggested Apple’s inclusion of an NFC payment system in the next generation of iPhone products as well.
Sound realistic to you? How about that multi-colored plastic iPhone, eh? Have a peek at some other recent Apple tips and suggestions in the timeline below, and let us know what you think!
Samsung has officially announced the arrival of its new gargantuan handsets. The new, aptly named Galaxy Mega will be available in both 5.8- and 6.3-inch versions—for people with freakishly large hands everywhere. More »
Samsung has officially revealed the Galaxy Mega, its latest sizable smartphone, with a choice of 5.8- or whopping 6.3-inch screen sizes as the lines between phones and small tablets continue to blur. Packing a 1.7GHz dualcore chip running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean on the Galaxy Mega 6.3 (or a slightly slower 1.4GHz dualcore on the Galaxy Mega 5.8), the new handsets each have 8-megapixel main cameras and up to 64GB of storage support.
Aside from size and CPU, there are some other differentiators to consider. Samsung has given the Galaxy Mega 6.3 LTE for up to 100Mbps downloads – network depending – as well as HSPA+ to fall back onto, though the Galaxy Mega 5.8 makes do with HSPA+ only.
Screen resolution also varies. The larger Mega has a 720p HD screen that, like the Galaxy S 4, can track a user’s finger when hovering over the display rather than just when touching it; the smaller version makes do with qHD, which seems underwhelming given it’s still a large device. Above each panel there’s a 1.9-megapixel front facing camera, while inside there’s WiFi a/b/g/n (the Mega 6.3 gets 802.11ac too, along with NFC), Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, GLONASS, and a microSD card slot to augment the 8GB of onboard storage (with a 16GB option on the Mega 6.3, too).
Both versions have 1.5GB of RAM and all of Samsung’s usual TouchWiz tweaks, apps, and enhancements. That includes the camera fettling – Best Face, Beauty Face, HDR, continuous shooting, and more – and S Translator, WatchON for streaming media, Pop Up Play and Multi Window, and S Voice 2.0 for speech control.
The Galaxy Mega 6.3 has a removable 3,200 mAh Li-ion battery, while the Mega 5.8 trims that to a 2,600 mAh pack; they measure in at 167.6 x 88 x 8.0 (199g) and 162.6 x 82.4 x 9.0 mm (182g) respectively. Samsung isn’t giving specific runtime estimates, though claims to have done some work on prolonging talk and multimedia efficiency.
Both phones will go on sale from May, with a global roll-out kicking off in Europe and Russia. No word on pricing at this stage.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 is about to hit stores in the United States, and with it, Samsung’s next push for a new display size attached to next-generation smart pen abilities. This device is essentially the larger wi-fi-only version of what we’ll be seeing with the Samsung GALAXY S 4, hovering abilities and all. It might not have the same processor, and it might not be connected to mobile data, but it’s certainly keeping with the friendly theme.
Here with the Galaxy Note 8.0 you’ve got an 8-inch display that’s both bright and relatively sharp, 1280 x 800 pixel resolution working with TFT LCD technology and a connection to the newest in new S-Pen technology. The entire tablet measures in at 210.8 x 135.9 x 7.95 mm regardless of which version you’ve got while the weight will be ringing in at 340g for the wifi version (that being the one we’ve got here) and just 5g more for the 3G or LTE iteration (coming soon!)
This machine continues the tradition begun with the original Samsung Galaxy Note, employing a built-in “S-Pen” device that connects wirelessly to your tablet. You’ll be able to hover over bits and pieces of your everyday Android experience to see previews or zoom-in, you can draw pictures galore in a lovely assortment of ways, and you can write all the notes you like. This device has all the features of the previous Galaxy Note devices and more – the closest you’ll get to this experience outside this experience is in the Samsung Galaxy Note II.
Below you’ll see a set of three basic benchmark tests, each of them run without this device’s “power save” mode activated. You’ll find that with this display size and processor, the Galaxy Note 8.0 should be more than powerful enough to handle your everyday activities, be they gaming, productivity, or simple web browsing.
This device works with a 5 megapixel camera on its back, a 1.3 megapixel camera on its front, and is just large enough to feel a tiny bit awkward using while capturing photographs. We’ll have photo examples for you later this week when we’ve posted the full review – the same goes for more detail on the software included here, and battery tests as well. Here we’ve got an additional gallery of up-close-and-personal photographs of the device for you to enjoy.
Let us know if you’d like any more information than you expect us to provide in the review and we’ll do our best to make a fabulous review appear for you! Meanwhile hang tight and get ready for another look!
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
