Let's Talk Tech
I LOVE audio gear. Speaker reviews. Headphone reviews. They’re all good!
I haven’t tackled a pair of cans for a while, and thankfully I’ve got a MONSTER pair of Nokia cans to check out (see what I did there). One of my first gadget reviews was the wonderful Nokia Bluetooth BH-905’s, and now with the BH-940’s Nokia has added NFC pairing to their wireless headphone formula.
Retailing for around $250, let’s see if this is peanut butter jelly time!
Motorola’s fresh spin on Android can now be yours for a very nice price!
If you’re shopping Cyber Monday deals, this is a pretty good one. How about $150 off a Moto X?
This brings Moto’s top handset in line with Nexus phones, and Moto is already rolling out KitKat. For the 16GB model, you can schnag one today only for $350. No contract, no financing. $350 and you own it outright.
Quantities will be limited, and the sale runs through today only, but for those lucky folks who can buy one at this price, you can pick one up for Sprint, Verizon, T-Mo, or AT&T. No carrier or color/customization restrictions. Go nuts! Sale starts at 8am Central time!
You folks buying phones this holiday season, will this price point tempt you to open your wallet? Are you considering a Motorola this year? Drop us a comment below!
From our Facebook page, Robin asks:
Here’s a question relating to Android… When I plug my Moto X into my Windows PC using the supplied USB cable, it shows up as a storage device and I can copy stuff to/from it with no problems. But when I plug it into a USB port on my wife’s MacBook Pro, it’s not even recognized as a device. How can I access my Moto X from Mac OSX?
Hey Robin,
It’s because Apple can be frustrating about supporting standards like MTP. Apple refuses to natively support the USB Media Transfer Protocol. It’s how you can plug your phone into a PC and see files on your phone and computer at the same time.
There are two different ways to share files between a phone and computer, MTP and Mass Storage. If you use Mass Storage, the storage on your phone becomes a standalone drive for your computer, and your phone will no longer be able to see any of those files. That was fine during the Windows Mobile and early Android days. You’d plug in your phone, and it would essentially become a dead lump of a USB drive. Now though, we don’t want to lose access to our precious communication tools, even for a brief file transfer. That’s why Android and Windows Phone now utilize MTP. It comes with some drawbacks like slower file transfers, and you can only move one file at a time, but your phone wont be separated from its storage while connected to a computer. Given the trade off, I’d rather be able to connect my phone to my computer, and still being able to use it as a normal phone with all of my files and apps intact.
The iPhone just doesn’t work that way, so Apple doesn’t feel any great pressure to support other mobile device file management protocols. As far as they’re concerned you should be using iOS and iTunes.
Google did release an Android file manager program for Mac users which might work for you –Â http://www.android.com/filetransfer/
If that doesn’t work you might need to look at cloud solutions. The nice thing about Android, it’s silly easy to move files on and off via services like Google Drive, Box, and DropBox.
You could also do a local network sync via an app like AirSync –http://www.doubletwist.com/airsync/Â or Air Droid –Â http://www.airdroid.com/Â which will use your home WiFi network. It wont be as fast as a cable connection, but it’ll be faster than Bluetooth.Â
But yeah. Short story long, this is basically Apple’s fault.
Blah blah blah abstraction layer… Herp derp blerp API’s…
Long story short, Google is trying to improve the software / hardware relationship our smartphone cameras rely on. This should expand the tool set developers have at their disposal when making photo and video services. Google specifically is discussing better multi-shot tech which should improve sport and burst modes and deliver more flexible HDR settings. An HDR photo depends on a series of pics taken quickly at different exposures. Other smart modes could be improved too, like the ability to take a series of shots to remove distracting elements from your photos.
All well and good from a consumer app-y position, but the idea of delivering RAW files could be really interesting for people who really want to control their photo output, even from their phones.
Continue reading “Google confirms camera RAW support is coming to Android. So what’s that mean?”
It’s that time!
Wrapping up the year, we’re going to take a look back at the year in smartphones. Unlike our Tablet Buying Guide, there are many aspects to shopping a phone. Instead of declaring a one-size-fits-all winner, we’re going to run down a list of individual features. We’ll hand out awards to the best of the best in categories like Camera, Speakers, and Battery Life.
If you’re shopping a phone this Holiday Season, we hope this will help you make a buying decision on those features which are most important to you!
Let’s get to it!
Continue reading “SomeGadgetGuy’s 2013 Smartphone Awards! The Best of the Best!”
What could you do with $1? Probably not a lot right.
Well what could 100 people do if they each chipped in a dollar? A thousand people? A million?
It’s the spirit of giving, and it’s important that we check in from time to time. Our tech can be used for trivial things and terrific things.
When it comes to crowd-funding, million dollar projects take up most of the mind share, but we haven’t completely exhausted the idea of bringing a crowd of people to contribute money to an idea. One Today is one possible solution for finding and funding. Â A new project is highlighted every day, and users can decide whether they wish to contribute a dollar.
Projects run the gamut of social causes, from protecting coral reef, to fighting malaria, or contributing to the World Food Program. A new cause every day is served up right to your phone.
The idea of small, painless transactions makes a lot of sense. Even a relatively small group can quickly build a significant amount of capital. To that end, just as you might easily share a picture on social networking, One Today provides participants with easy tools to help spread the word on causes they care about.
Just a quick heads up folks!
Humble Mobile Bundle 3 is ready to roll. For those of you not hip to the Humble Bundle, it’s a collection sold by the developers, artists, musicians, or writers under a “pay what you want” model. This bundle is a collection of Android games: EPOCH, rymdkapsel, SpellTower, Swordigo, Ridiculous Fishing, and Kingdom Rush. To get all six games, you have to pay more than the average price, which at the time of this writing was under $5. Less than a dollar an app.
At checkout you can decide how much to pay, and how much of your payment will go to the Humble Bundle team, the app developers, and to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child’s Play Charities. And keep an eye out for future bundles. I’ve gotten some great albums, e-book collections, and PC games through this site.
Get to it folks! These games aren’t going to buy themselves!
Google’s newest pure Android phone is officially a part of the T-Mo roster.
Lil’ Magenta is listing the new Nexus 5 for $449 if you want to buy it outright through the carrier. If you’re buying the phone upfront though, it might make more sense to buy it direct from Google Play where the handset will cost $100 less.
Why you MIGHT want to buy it through T-Mo is if you’re looking to subsidize and pay for it over time. A Â down payment of $41.99 is required, but then your monthly payments are only $17 over two years. I’s certainly an option, but if you can afford to buy it outright, that’s the better deal.
Full PR after the jump.
Continue reading “T-Mobile selling 16GB Nexus 5 for $449. Should you buy it?”