Android Circuit: Samsung, Sony, And Motorola Are Ready To Fight Apple
Taking a look back at the week in news across the Android world, this week's Android Circuit highlights a number of stories including new hardware from Samsung, Sony, Motorola, Lenovo, and Huawei; Google's updated to Android Wear; the new Android L arrives in Chrome; and we take a look around the rest of the IFA trade show.
Android Circuit is here to remind you of a few of the many things that have happened around Android over the last seven days.
But First...
It has been a busy week in the world of Android hardware. With the Berlin IFA consumer electronics show in full swing, manufacturers have been revealing new smartphones, new tablets, new wearable devices and smartwatches, and many of them powered by Android. This is the vision that Google had with Android, to be the glue that joins together countless disparate devices with a common language (albeit with quite a few dialects to work through).
But before I take the major manufacturers in turn, some housekeeping around Android itself.
Google's wearable OS, Android Wear, is picking up a small update for the current portfolio of smartwatches, before a larger update pencilled in for the end of the year. Support for GPS hardware, direct bluetooth connections to peripherals, and the ability for developers to create custom watch faces will all be added.
While the Android world waits on a more concrete release schedule for the next version of the OS (Android L), the UI changes are starting to find their way into Google's own applications as they are updated. Next up, and probably the most visible app of all, is Chrome. The web browser for Android now sports the new 'material UI' look throughout the interface (reports Nathan Ingram at The Verge). I hope you like it, because it's going to be unavoidable over the next few months as Android L works its way onto smartphone screens.
Samsung Stays With An Iterative Strategy
As mentioned during its Q2 earnings call, Samsung delivered 'the high-end model with a large screen' they promised (reports Forbes' Jay McGregor from IFA). The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is an iterative development of the Galaxy Note 3, and when you take out the natural tendency for specifications to rise, there's nothing new here. The companion device, the Galaxy Note Edge, bends 160 pixels of the screen along the right hand edge to create a screen in the 'spine' of the tablet. It's a bold look, but was anyone really asking for this in their next tablet?
We also saw Samsung's Gear VR headset, powered by the Galaxy Note 4 hardware and the Oculus Rift software, it feels like a proof of concept device, but it will be available for consumers to buy if they so wish.
Earlier in the week I took a closer look at Samsung's strategy. I was hoping to see something more radical, instead I saw the same iterative approach that took them to the top of the Android sales charts, but for the last three quarters sales have been slipping. I don't think the announced hardware at IFA will halt the slide.
They Are Still Called X, G, And 360
Motorola were at IFA, but their main announcement happened on Thursday in Chicago. Following on from the critical success of last year's Moto X, and the commercial success of the low-end Moto G, Motorola revealed the next handsets in the X and G line up.
Both handsets retain the same naming, so it's the Moto X (2014) sporting a 5.2 inch AMOLED 1080p screen and a Snapdragon 801 / Adreno 330 chipset that will be the flagship; while the Moto G (2014) also gets a larger screen (now up to 5 inches at 720p) but the processor remains an older Snapdragon 400 series.
The Moto 360 Android Wear smartwatch finally gets a price ($249/£199) and a release date. It's available now in the US, and UK customers will be able to pick it up in October.Gordon Kelly had a preview of all the new Moto hardware here on Forbes.
Sony Offer More Protection In A Smaller Size With The Z3 Range
Forbes' Ian Morris has been looking over Sony's hardware announced at IFA, including the decision to not max out the screen resolution with 2560×1440. With a new tablet (the 8 inch Tablet Z3 Compact), the Xperia Z3 Mini, and the flagship Xperia Z3, the Japanese company has continued with the aluminium and glass design of previous Xperia hardware, and focused on dust and waterproofing, as well as reducing the weight while increasing the performance.
Interestingly, Sony's latest smartwatch, the Sony SmartWatch 3, will not be running Sony's custom watch software, but Android Wear instead.
We'll have in-depth reviews of the Sony hardware in the near future here on Forbes.
Lenovo Counts To Eight...
While Lenovo waits to complete the purchase of Motorola, its smartphone team has been working on the Z2 Vibe. Not to be confused with Sony's Xperia Z2 from earlier this year, the Z2 Vibe is a 64-bit octal-core monster of a smartphone with a 5 inch screen. No details on availability but price is going to be 429 Euros SIM free.
Huawei Punt A Phablet With Two Chipsets
Huawei has announced the Huawei Mate7, a phablet that seems designed to take on the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 in size, price, and in specifications. Over to Forbes' Jay McGregor again from IFA:
Huawei promises that the Ascend Mate7 is its most powerful phablet to date, with an octa-core Huawei Kirin 925 processor. Which is made up of four large A15 1.8GHz chipsets and four small A7 1.3 GHz chipsets. The idea is that the smaller chipsets will process the day-to-day functions of commonly used apps (which, apparently, makes up 80% of smartphone use) and the bigger chipsets will be utilised for gaming and other intense activity. Huawei claims that this activity management will save up to 50% of the battery.
What About The Rest Of IFA?
McGregor has also taken a look around the show floor at IFA to find five hot tech products in Berlin. Not all of them are Android, but this is a nice flavour of where the rest of the world is going to finish off Android Circuit this week.
'Android Circuit' will round-up the news from the Android world every weekend here on Forbes. Don't forget to follow me so you don't miss any coverage in the future, and of course the sister column in Apple Loop! Last week's Android Circuit can be found here, and if you have any news and links you'd like to see featured in Android Circuit, get in touch!Samsung Galaxy Note Edge, Note 4 And Gear S
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