Android News & Device Reviews

Boeing has certainly got some big ideas off the ground in its 96-year history, though its latest project may come as a surprise to some — the famous plane maker has said it will soon be launching a smartphone. According to a report this week from trade magazine National Defense (ND), the Seattle-based company is developing a highly secure Android-powered device which should be ready by the end of this year. Speaking to ND, vice president of… Read More

It's that time of the year again, when you have two days left and you're taxes still aren't done. Luckily, mine are, so I have time to share a few apps with you. We've compiled five of the best Android and iPhone apps for managing different aspects of filing your taxes on the go. Some of these apps help estimating taxes or checking on refunds, one will actually file your taxes, and two contain helpful reference material.… Read More

The consumer electronics market is a fun thing to pay attention to, but one of the hardest and worst things about it is how little we know about devices before they hit store shelves. Release dates are difficult to find and solid information on the release details of upcoming phones and tablets is also a challenge. Most of this is due to intense competition, Apple's influence, and the nature of our wireless carriers, but it's simply… Read More

Samsung has just announced two new portable media players, doubling its Wi-Fi-only Galaxy Player line-up to four devices and ensuring that just about every hand shape and size is catered for. But don’t rule out the company introducing more sizes for the Galaxy Player in the future, of course. The latest additions are the Galaxy Player 3.6 and 4.2, which will sit alongside the existing 4.0 and 5.0 models that launched last October. Priced… Read More

 Apple’s iTunes store set the pace for Google’s foray into developing an in-app purchasing solution for Google Play and Microsoft opening the doors to its Marketplace. While much of the success of freemium models has been reliant on advertising, more developers have been looking for solutions that would allow app users to purchase updates, virtual items and subscriptions. Today, Amazon has joined the pack with an in-app purchasing system… Read More

Sprint subscribers, you've been enduring a rather lackluster phone selection for a while now, but it looks like things are turning around. Earlier this evening, the folks at TechnoBuffalo noticed (and we have confirmed) that a phone that looks an awful lot like the Galaxy Note is on the main page of Sprint.com. While this may be a simple error or another phone entirely, it could also mean that Sprint may get its own variation of the Galaxy… Read More

Toshiba has taken the lid off three upcoming tablets today: the Excite 7.7, Excite 10, and Excite 13. All three are essentially identical on the inside and outside, with their only real differences coming from size. I got a chance to check them out last week and walked away fairly impressed. Though Toshiba isn't going to knock the iPad out of the ring anytime soon, representatives seemed genuinely excited about the PC maker's… Read More

LG is at a crucial point in its history, as according to figures released by the company earlier in the year, it’s phone division posted its first profits for eighteen months at the end of 2011. This may be surprising to some, as LG holds second place in the US mobile market share charts, and fourth in the world, so it could hardly be described as a small fish. The profit shown during the final three months of 2011 wasn’t enough to stop ZTE… Read More

Internet giant Google has been facing increasing scrutiny from regulators in the United States — as well as in the European Union — for everything from its privacy practices to tweaking its search algorithms to favor its own vertical products and services at the expense of competitors. Now, Google has a strange ally in the form of one-time Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, who has penned an op-ed for the Chicago Tribune arguing that, as big… Read More

Android users have had Instagram access for less than a week, and something very strange has happened as a result. I’m not talking about the one million users added within the first 12 hours – that makes complete sense. I’m talking about the iOS outrage that’s followed the launch. Shortly after it became known that Android users could download and beginning posting to Instagram, iPhone users made their disappointment known. There have been… Read More

Sometimes, to beat the man, you gotta be the man. Ric Flair knew this and all of Apple's tablet competitors have followed this motto, but Lenovo is about to kick it up a notch. The Chinese computer maker has unveiled its new IdeaTab S2109 on YouTube, which forgoes the traditional widescreen aspect ratio of all Android tablets and instead uses the same 9.7-inch 4:3 aspect ratio screen found in the first two iPads, complete with the same… Read More

Released earlier this week for all Android smartphone owners, Instagram for Android is rapidly becoming an extremely popular application after more than one million users downloaded the app during the first twelve hours after release. According to Instagram, the application supports all smartphone devices that include a camera and runs Android 2.2 or above with support for OpenGL ES 2. Android powered phones without OpenGL ES 2 aren't… Read More

At SXSW, one of the questions I asked every app developer I met with was what they thought of Windows Phone. And I received generally the same feedback from all of them: really interested by the platform, love the UI, want to see where it’s going. Pretty positive feedback for what’s mostly been considered the dark horse candidate of the mobile market. Microsoft has been busy – really busy – unifying its platform, which in turn will strengthen… Read More

If you're holding out for the rumored Google tablet, your wait may have just got quite a bit longer. The Verge reports that Google is re-working the current version of its first-ever tablet in an attempt to drive the price down even further, which pushed the release until at least July. The original model, which Google had reportedly planned to release in May, would cost customers about $250 — less than half the cost of the least… Read More

Google Wallet has found itself stuck between a rock and hard place: it knows NFC payments are the future yet few of the necessary parties are willing to take the plunge with its product. And earlier this week, former co-founding engineer (who had since stepped down but remained at Google) Rob von Behren revealed via LinkedIn that he has left the company for Square. It’s only the most recent blow for a platform that has faced noticeable setbacks… Read More